The Final Duel
by d'arthur
Summary: When Entreri discovers that Drizzt is still alive, he must make an agonizing choice. Confront or be content? This story started as a Drizzt story, until Entreri's character took over the writing. It's much more character-driven and interesting now.
1. Default Chapter

Prologue  
  
My home is Icewind Dale. Or is it? I am not so sure anymore. Surely I have a warm feeling in my heart for the Dale, for the cold winds and harsh winters spent with the dwarves in Kelvin's Cairn, and for Regis, who has returned home to Lonelywood, and of course, for Catti-brie. But is it truly my home? I admit now that I know not. For what, truly, is home? It is something different to every person, as home is very much different between Wood Elves, who favor the whimsical forests, and the Dark Elves, the Drow, who thrive in the dangerous Underdark.  
  
I have long ago decided that home was not a place, but a feeling. Home is where I am most comfortable, most at ease. Thus my home is not Menzoberranzan, nor is it Calimport, or aboard the Sea Sprite, nor, I think, even Icewind Dale.  
  
But I have had an additional thought to add to that, for if home truly is a place of comfort and peace where all is safe and secure, then I know that I have no home.  
  
Before my unfortunate sister, Vivinne, and her group of Drow and Artemis Entreri came to Mithril Hall to capture me and sacrifice me to the evil Spider Queen, I recognized that I thrive, am at ease, that I truly live, in battle and combat, a place of complete insecurity and, for most, unease. That when there is no enemy, I become restless and uneasy, that for me, a warrior, a time of peace is a place of stress and insecurity.  
  
And yet, I am in a place of peace and comfort with my friends, my companions of the Hall, with Catti-brie. So is then combat my home? No, I cannot think so, though I am able to truly live while having such a direct and obvious goal, as when the Crystal Shard needed to be destoryed, or when we set off to find Wulfgar's lost warhammer, Aegis-fang.  
  
But no, battle is not my home. What then is my home, if indeed I have one? If I am to hold to my deffinition of home, comforting and secure, then I must choose that which is most obvious to me, and yet the most disturbing, perhaps.  
  
My home is with Catti-brie, wherever that may lead.  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
Chapter 1 - The Plottings of Fate  
  
The elf trotted swiftly down the dirt path, lavender eyes flicking quickly about the disturbed ground of the trail, following the large imprinted markings.  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden held his head low, the hood of his green cloak tight against the slicing autum wind as he reached the bottom of the Spine of the World mountain range. His ebony skin was nearly impossible to see under the cowl, but any who knew of the defenders of Icewind Dale knew of the identifiable forest green cloak and black skin to recognize Drizzt Do'Urden when they saw them.  
  
Most of the denizens of the surface were terrified of drow, the legendary and infamous dark elves who generally lived out their lives deep in the Underdark far below the surface world and were rarely seen, but not of Drizzt Do'Urden, hero of the North, victor over Akar Kessel, defeater of the Ice Dragon Icingdeath, friend and companion of Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth and Tenth king of the legendary Mithril Hall (a very confusing tale indeed), friend to Wulfgar the barbarian, wielder of the enchanted scimitars Twinkle and Icingdeath, last of the Drow noble house of Do'Urden.  
  
He had lived to see many battles, and proudly brandished many fine scars from each of them.  
  
Swiftly, he squatted in the dirt and peered intently at the tracks before him.  
  
His quarry was close.  
  
* * *  
  
The wizard shoved his half-elven slave before him, the slave loosing his feet and crumpling to the ground, groaning into the dirt, scrambling quickly, trying to rise again, to not give his terrible master another opportunity to use that horrible whip. But the slave was too weak, and instead of getting to his feet, merely writhed on the ground for a few moments.  
  
Behind him, the wizard smiled nastily and reached to his belt, uncoiling a very strange whip indeed. It was black, with nine heads, all of the writhing and dancing through the air on their own, nine black snake heads hissing at the sight of a victim so prone upon the ground.  
  
"Haven't learned your lesson yet, eh?" smiled the wizard, casually swinging the whip heads just out of striking range of the fallen man.  
  
The slave rolled over onto his back, whimpering, covering his head with his arms.  
  
"Ohh," sighed the wizard, a sparkle of anticipation in his red eyes, "what a perfect target."  
  
He lashed out at his slave with it, three of the nine heads sinking their fangs into the pitiful slave's arms, tearing hunks of flesh from the bones, the venom seeping in, the slave's arms instantly going numb and limp.  
  
Because that was what happened when one was struck with a Drow female's whip.  
  
Drizzt rummaged through a pouch at his hip, pulling out the small onyx statue of a black panther. He set it reverently upon the ground and whispered to it.  
  
"Guenhwyvar, come to me," the drow said softly to the extraplaner creature that was his beloved black panther friend.  
  
A gray mist collected around the onyx statue, swiftly taking form in the shape of a huge black panther, nearly ten feet long and almost as tall as Drizzt when the panther was on all fours.  
  
Drizzt smiled at his friend and nodded at the tracks.  
  
"Our quarry is near at hand."  
  
The panther growled happily in anticipation.  
  
* * *  
  
Kilster Dolonen was an influencial wizard in the Hosttower of the Arcane in Luskan. He and some companions had set off on a quest for a fabled magical ruby when they had been ambushed in the Spine of the World by a band of thieves and cutthroats, including two powerful but rare Frost Giants.  
  
One companion had been crushed without warning, the wagon he had been in reduced to powdered kindling by one rock heaved by one of those cursed frost giants, the second throw mortally wounding another, effectively taking him out of the fight. It was then only Kilster and one other, against an entire band, including the two frost giants.  
  
Concentrating on the giants, the wizards had managed to bring one down in a smoldering pile of charred flesh and twisted bone. They had managed to fend off the rest of the band-humans and orcs-fairly easily. With her last fireball, Kilster's friend had slain the second frost giant, only to get a dagger in the back for the trouble-from Kilster himself, not one for allies.  
  
Only the unfortunate wretch before him had lived of the band of attackers. After looting the bandits' treasure-trove, among which Kilster had discovered the drow whip, Kilster had been taking out his anger upon the hapless thief, experimenting with the whip, which he was becoming quite prolific with in the recent tenday since the ambush.  
  
His prisoner shrieked in agony, writhing pitifully on the ground, which only made Kilster lash at him all the harder, taking more fleshing, numbing more limbs.  
  
He would have become even better with the whip had not a lone drow elf dropped lightly into the middle of the road a short way in front of them.  
  
* * *  
  
Drizzt eyed the wizard coldly, wondering how the human had gotten possession of a drow whip. The drow were an evil and secretive race and Drizzt refused to believe that a female drow had parted with the item willingly. The only way for one of them to release their prized whips was for them to be dead.  
  
Of course, Drizzt did not care at all, really, how the wizard had gained the item, aside a dull curiousity, and warning himself that the enchanter had to be powerful indeed to defeat a female drow of high enough rank to have possession of such a whip.  
  
His forearms rested comfortably on the handles of his twin scimitars, a relaxed posture until the drow decided to explode into motion, when hardly any could follow him and his dazzling skills with the blades, skill aided by enchanted bracers Drizzt had taken from the weapons master of the drow House Baenre after he had slain the weapons master in pitched combat.  
  
"That is a curious weapon for a wizard," Drizzt remarked, perfectly calm.  
  
The wizard sneered at the drow, apparently quite confident in his ablities to fend off even a dark elf.  
  
"Drizzt Do'Urden I presume?" the wizard taunted, his voice a bit squeaky.  
  
Drizzt fell back a that remark, surprised, though he tried to cover it. But the wizard saw it.  
  
"Yes, I know you and your name, drow," the confident wizard continued, a wide smile on his face, clearly believing himself to hold the upper hand. "Who in all the northland does not?"  
  
Drizzt bowed low at the compliment. Instantly the wizard came forward, hand outstreached, chanting an arcane phrase, deep in the throws of spellcasting.  
  
Six hundred pounds of panther slammed into him from behind.  
  
Five seconds later, it was over, with a rather bloodied Guenhwyvar bounding over to Drizzt's side.  
  
Drizzt dismissed the slave, promising "if you ever are caught again acosting travelers upon the roads of Icewind Dale, I shall let my panther do to you what it did to the unfortunate wizard, only much slower."  
  
After a fearful glace down at the corpse, and a severe paling of the face at the sight of Guenhwyvar growling at him, the man ran off into the wilderness.  
  
"He could have stuck to the road," Drizzt remarked dryly to his companion.  
  
Soon after, the elf dismissed his friend back to her home, the Astral Plane. He then approached the corpse, whip still writhing in the dead wizard's hand. In the blink of an eye, out flashed Twinkle, slashing at the prone heads of the whip. Two seconds later, nine heads lay still on the road. Sheathing the glowing blue blade, Drizzt looked at the body.  
  
He knew nothing good would come of this wizard's death.  
  
* * *  
  
The human stalked in, feet making not even a whisper on the normally creaky florboards of the plush bedroom. It was huge and spacious, with a huge double-bed and curtain frame in the center, with several mirrors and desks and even several large potted plants resting upon pedistals scattered about the room.  
  
The human snorted in disgust. There were a thousand different spots around this room that begged to hide assassins. The human shook his head, silently wondering why rich pashas who were always at risk for assassinations were living in rooms where hundreds of murderers may lurk. He was almost ashamed of the stupidity of humans, and rich humans in particular.  
  
Of course, he remined himself, it did make his job a bit easier.  
  
He whispered his way to the window curtains, slipping behind them so perfectly that ever if someone were watching, it would appear to merely be a gust of wind.  
  
And there he waited.  
  
Soon after, he heard the door opening and the heavy breathing of an extremely overweight man as he lumbered to his bed (which creaked and groaned loudly as he sat), and undressed. Then the lamp was extinguished and all was plunged into blackness.  
  
Softly, two glowing orbs appeared, as the human shifted his eyes from normal to infrade vision. He glided from behind the curtain and drew his magnificently jeweled dagger from it's sheath from the folds of his cloak.  
  
Before the fat Pasha knew what was happening, there was a jeweled dagger pressed to his ample, meaty throat.  
  
"Don't kill me!" whimpered the cowardly Pasha, too afraid to move, beginning to sweat.  
  
"Generally I torture men who beg," the cold voice answered back, and the pasha knew that no bargaining would spare him, for that voice told him in no uncertain terms, that he was dead already.  
  
"I'm rich!" pleaded the pasha, taking a wild stab, praying to whatever god was listening that the man with the knife had a weakness for gold.  
  
"Oh yes," said the cold voice, it's tone deadly, "and your bounty says dead or alive."  
  
The pasha felt the man lean in closer to him, and in the dim starlight, the pasha saw the man's face, and the blood drained from his own. Of course, that could have also been partial to the fact that his thoat had just been neatly cut open.  
  
"The living just slow the whole process down terribly," said the deadly voice, as Artemis Entreri wiped his blade clean on the pasha's bedclothes, and quietly slipped out of the Guild House, into the streets of Calimport.  
  
By the time the body had been discovered the next morning, Artemis Entreri had already passed through the city gates and was long gone, to collect his bounty from the Hosttower in Luskan.  
  
* * *  
  
The sun was setting in a blazing fireball of glory behind the Spine of the World as Drizzt returned to his camp set away in a small alcove of rock that shielded him somewhat from the strong icewind from which the Dale derived it's name a day after the attack on the road.  
  
The alcove was deserted and the blackened firepit smoldering from a recent blaze. Drizzt paused. It was empty, yet it shouldn't have been. Hands on his scimitars, Drizzt tensed, his gut telling him that something was wrong, that there was an attack waiting for him. He skirted the camp, skittering close to the rock wall that made up the wall of the circular alcove, eyes scanning for signs of trouble.  
  
He did not have long to wait.  
  
There were many tracks, and signs of a struggle in the camp. The drow noted with concern several large droplets of red blood staining the ground near the firepit.  
  
He recognized the tracks and his blood ran cold in horror.  
  
Yetis.  
  
His mind blured and he staggered and fell to his knees, noting also the unmistakable marks as if a body had been attacked and dragged away. He felt a cold emptiness settle deep in his heart and his skin seemed numb.  
  
Not for himself, never that. But for his companion.  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden muttered a single word, his voice trembling, as he tripped over a recognizable bow lying on the ground, splashed in blood.  
  
"Catti-brie...."  
  
A intense fire came to Drizzt Do'Urden's lavender eyes then, as a red wall of rage swelled in him to replace the emptiness as he drew his scimitars and charged out of the alcove, not caring if all the Dale heard him coming, and pursued the trail.  
  
He was the hunter again, and woe be to his prey.  
  
* * *  
  
Artemis Entreri eyed the wizard coldly, sizing him up, fingers itching to plunge his dagger into the baby-faced fool's chest. Entreri had to force down a smile at the thought of watching the life-force be pulled out of that one, forced himself to remember that there was no worth in killing the idiot. Not at this time.  
  
Instead, Entreri feigned deafness and leaned in slightly, aiming his right ear more directly in line with the wizard.  
  
"Say again?" he asked coldly.  
  
The wizard exchanged a nervous glance with his friend, another wizard, taller than the first, and had a greying beard and long white hair. Clearing his throat, the first wizard reiterated his words.  
  
"We are declining your payment..." the younger wizard stuttered, trailing off with the dangerous glint in Entreri's eyes.  
  
The older wizard piped up, deffinately not wanting to get entirely on Artemis Entreri's bad side. You just didn't go around getting on Artemis Entreri's bad side, it just wasn't very intelligent. Not many people were on Entreri's bad side-mostly because everyone who got on the assassin's bad side was dead.  
  
Many had made the mistake of getting on his bad side, and now only a few were living to talk about it. There were two exceptions to that rule-of course, everyone knew about that. Regis the Halfling and his drow companion Drizzt Do'Urden had angered Artemis Entreri on many occations-not something one did to maintain an active lifestyle-and had managed to elude death at the hands of the cold-blooded assassin-no, the older wizard, Rambaret, corrected, no, Entreri was a bounty hunter now, bringing in criminals to justice-several times.  
  
"We are withholding payment until another job is completed for us," the older wizard said quickly into the dead silence.  
  
Entreri stepped closer to them, eyes flashing dangerously. He came right up to Rambaret's face. The younger wizard flinched back at his approach, but Rambaret forced himself not to show any fear.  
  
"I promised to do this one job. I elliminated that baffoon Pasha Kilik for you. My deal with you mettlesome wizards is terminated," Rambaret didn't know how it was possible, but Entreri put his face even closer, until their noses were nearly touching. "You will deliver to me my fee or I will kill you and then help myself to my fee and more."  
  
Entreri was bluffing, and Rambaret knew it.  
  
"That would bring the full wrath of the Hosttower down upon your head, Artemis Entreri. Can Artemis Entreri move fast enough to dodge fifty fireballs? Or run far enough to escape our scrying eyes and teleport doorways? Can Artemis Entreri fend off the full power of the wizards of the Hosttower of the Arcane?" Rambaret snapped, and for a moment the wizard thought he had pushed Entreri too far, that he would simple kill him and his apprentice then and there, wrath of the Hosttower be damned. But then Entreri stepped away, still eyeing them dangerously. He said nothing, refusing to openly acknowlege that he feared the wizards.  
  
It was as good a victory as Rambaret was ever likely to get over the likes of the ruthless bounty hunter. "We want you to elliminate Drizzt Do'Urden," Rambaret said bluntly, figuring pandering around the point only to frustrate and anger Entreri.  
  
There was a flash of surprise and suspision that flickered through Entreri's eyes, before he fought them down and forced himself to speak calmly.  
  
"Then I have already accomplished the task. I killed Drizzt Do'Urden with my own hands," Entreri said, a blatant lead, waiting for the wizards to drop some hint about this foolish and petty game they played with him.  
  
But the look on Rambaret's face was genuine surprise.  
  
"When? How?" stuttered the wizard.  
  
"Some months ago," Entreri replied casually, "now about my fee..."  
  
"Months? Impossible!" stumbled Rambaret, honestly shocked.  
  
"And yet that is the truth."  
  
"But he passed through here merely a tenday ago, heading home to Icewind Dale after apparently visiting with his barbarian friend in Waterdeep," said Rambaret. "And he cut down a promanent wizard of the Hosttower only yesterday while traveling back to the Spine of the World!"  
  
Artemis Entreri could have been knocked over with a feather. He swayed on his feet. His emotions were awhirl in his heart.  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden, his enemy, his nemesis, his fighting equal, alive? He felt rage mingling with, curiously, relief, frustration, and a bitter emptiness within himself that he knew was what truly was the life of Artemis Entreri. That bitter reminder that his life was nothing but a lie. He didn't like facing that. And he hated Drizzt the more for forcing that unforgiving and uncompromising mirror upon him once again.  
  
For while Drizzt and Entreri were fighting equals, they were also complete opposites. For years Entreri was the greatest assassin in Calimport, perhaps all of Faerun. He killed efficiently and quickly for the prominent Thieves Guild under the late Pasha Pook, a victim of Drizzt's pet panther. And then, when pursuing Regis the Halfling, Entreri had met the renagade drow, who had changed the assassin's life forever, putting up a moral mirror to Entreri's pitiable mere existence. For while Entreri opted to work alone and have no close, trusted friends who could, and would so he believed, betray him, Drizzt Do'Urden had a close relationship with five trusted friends, who knew love, compassion, and, Entreri winced to remember it, a true life, one that brought the ultimate satisfaction of the heart.  
  
And only a few months prior, Entreri's "friend" Jarlaxle, another drow, once the leader of a renagade band of male dark elves, had arranged for a final battle, a battle that would not end until one or the other had won. And Drizzt had won, clearly, and then turned away, refusing to fight any longer, and Entreri had rushed him. A drow psionic had given an unknowing Entreri a spell of protection. The energy of Drizzt's every strike had been absorbed into Entreri's body until he charged, when he had only hit Drizzt with his hand flat on the chest.  
  
Entreri remembered all of that pent up energy flowing into Drizzt's body, driving the assassin's hand through the flesh, killing the renagade drow, without meaning to. He shuddered at the unwanted memory.  
  
Steadying himself, drawing in a deep breath, Entreri uttered a single word, a word that shuddered with barely controled emotions.  
  
"What?" he growled.  
  
* * *  
  
There was more blood splattered across the tracks of the yetis, which only caused Drizzt to run full out in pursuit.  
  
He crested a slight rise in the plains of the Dale, and below him in the shallow basin were four huge yetis, surrounding an extremely still body. The ground was seeped in blood, the light dusting of snow a dark redish stain.  
  
Drizzt charged in.  
  
He did not prepare the battlefield, did not send for Guenhwavar, he simply tore down the slight slope towards them, his mind a solid red wall of unstoppable fury.  
  
The nearest yeti turned, saw the drow charging, snarled, and readied itself.  
  
As he got within striking distance, the yeti launched a furious left-right manuver with it's arms, claws raking the air. Drizzt easily dodged the expected attacks, bending his whole body at the knees, clawed arms slicing harmlessly past above his head.  
  
His back touched the ground, with the soles of his feet still planted firmly upon the ground. He kicked them out, smashing the yeti in the kneecaps, feeling bone crunch under his boots, and rolled to the right, up to his feet again.  
  
The yeti howled in pain, clutching at it's crushed knees, falling over on it's side. It's three companions rose as one and leaped over their friend's prone form, howling in fury.  
  
Drizzt waded in, scimitars flashing.  
  
The second yeti roared and leaped forward, swiping at the elf, clearly hoping to rip half the skin from his chest and open his belly from left to right. And it would have, had Drizzt still been there. He dodged easily out of the clumsy assult's path, and slapped the blades of his scimitars across the yeti's belly, in an X pattern. It roared in pain and rage, going into a furious left-right-left-left combination move. Drizzt picked them off faster than the yeti had thought possible, and the first sign it had that Drizzt had even touched it was the sight of its hand hitting the ground in a red mist.  
  
It stared at the severed limb dumbly, too stunned to move. Cold metal sliced between the beast's ribs and punctured it's right lung. Wheezing, lung filling with blood, the yeti fell away to die.  
  
The two remaining yetis spread out, one circling behind, the other rushing in from the front. Exploding into motion, Drizzt spun fast, scimitars whipping around his body in a stunningly complext twirl, Twinkle extended in front of him, and IcingDeath straight out behind. The two yetis were faced with a veritable wall of sharp metal. The one charging Drizzt's front stopped short, but the one coming in from behind sudden fell back with two dozen deep gashes in it's arms and chest as Drizzt continued to spin.  
  
The elf whirled, his forest green cloak practically floating out behind him, and he skidded to a halt perfectly facing the remaining unwounded yeti. It eyed him with anger and some trepidation.  
  
Drizzt's eyes flared dangerously with that familiar lavender fire.  
  
The wounded yeti behind Drizzt snarled and charged, screaming in primal rage and pain. Still eying the unwounded one, Drizzt waited until the very last moment, then flipped Twinkle down, slipped it under his arm, pointing straight back and stabbed the yeti in the chest.  
  
It halted forcefully as it suddenly noted the sharp metal peircing through it's flesh. Drizzt spun, IcingDeath slashing low, at the back of the yeti's knees. The yeti tumbled forward to it's knees, its head now even with Drizzt's.  
  
But Drizzt's attention was riveted on the bloody corpse of Catti-brie. Bolstered with newfound rage, Drizzt spun back at the yeti and brought the blades of his scimitars together. With ease they diced through flesh and bone.  
  
The yeti's head splattered to the ground with a dull thud and rolled to the feet of its unwounded and clearly stunned companion. The yeti looked from Drizzt to the head to the body and back to Drizzt. Then the creature turned and fled away from the carnage as fast as it could.  
  
Dispassionately, Drizzt hurled Twinkle through the air. It caught the yeti just under the shoulder-blade, driving into the unfortuntate monster's lower left lung.  
  
The yeti stumbled and flopped to the ground, where it slowly expired. Feeling empty, Drizzt walked to the beast, tore his scimitar from its body, curtly turned, and with mechanical precision, coldly slit the throat of the yeti with the broken kneekaps.  
  
Then, dreading every move, the dark elf turned and slowly staggered down farther into the basin. To the body of Catti-brie.  
  
He was standing over her then, staring down at her unmoving form. He felt his knees going weak, and the next thing he knew he was on his knees beside her. He threw his scimitars to the ground and felt hot tears flooding his eyes. He tried to force them back, but back they would not go, and so he embraced them. He rocked back and forth on his knees, trying to regain some semblence of calm, running his shaking hands through his long, white hair.  
  
Her auburn hair was stained with blood, and there was a large gash on her forehead, her features dark with rivulets of dark red. Her right arm lay at an extremely awkward angle, and Drizzt knew that it was shattered. There were claw marks on her face, neck, and a few large lacerations on her chest and legs.  
  
He leaned down and hugged her close. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and let the tears come. It was his fault. He should have told her about the wizard and not simpy run off to take care of the problem.  
  
And then he felt her pulse against his cheek, though extremely faint. His eyes popped open wide, and he found that pulse again with his fingers. He nearly choked with relief. She was alive, if barely.  
  
Quickly he tore off his cloak and wrapped it about her battered form, giving her some warmth against the sharp winds of the dale. Then he gently lifted her in his arms, and struck out across the plains of Icewind Dale for the dwarven valley near Kelvin's Cairn.  
  
He prayed that his strength would not give out before then.  
  
* * *  
  
Artemis Entreri sat on the side of the small bed in his borrowed quarters, given to him by the wizards of the Hosttower while he decided what his next move was.  
  
His was a heart divided, half of him wanting to rush out for his sweet revenge, to confront the blasted drow for the final time and determine once and for all who was the better swordsman. Every time before their duel had been interupted by an outside force, whether they had been forced to work together by circumstance in order to survive, or one or the other of the two had been aided in some way by a third party, they had never been allowed to finish what they had begun.  
  
That side of himself told him that he was obviously the better swordsman and that he should find the drow and prove to the meddlsome dark elf who was stronger and that Artemis Entreri's life was not a lie.  
  
It was a tantilizing fantasy.  
  
But Artemis Entreri knew the truth. The other side of his heart told him that Drizzt Do'Urden was an unstoppable force with no complete equal in all the Realms. Artemis Entreri would always be second best. He would grow older and his body would degrade, the finely honed skills would deteriorate. Entreri could feel the weight of mortality pressing down on him even now. He would die, Entreri knew, long before his drow competitor even began to lose his skills and speed.  
  
The truth that the last time Entreri and Drizzt had fought, Drizzt had won.  
  
He looked up, his thoughts interupted, as the door opened and the drow Jarlaxle entered, his wide-brimmed hat looking outragous as usual.  
  
Once the leader of a powerful drow renegade band, Jarlaxle had been deposed when he had been taken by the coercive powers of Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, and with Entreri had come to the surface to see the world. A deadly adversary with more weapons and tricks on his person than all the wizards of the Hosttower and all the thieves in Calimport combined, Jarlaxle considered no one a threat to him, in fact, he would face down Drizzt Do'Urden without a fear in the world. Sometimes Entreri thought nothing could shake the blasted elf.  
  
Entreri scowled darkly at Jarlaxle.  
  
"Drizzt is dead, you say?" asked Entreri bluntly.  
  
Jarlaxle stopped short, the expression on his face showing Entreri the truth.  
  
"What?" Jarlaxle asked, taken aback. "Of course he is. You killed him with your own hands."  
  
Entreri stood and glared at Jarlaxle.  
  
"Liar," he whispered coldly, his eyes flashing and promising death.  
  
He pushed his face close to Jarlaxle's ebony one, the glare still fixed upon his features.  
  
"What game do you play with me, drow!" shouted Entreri, practically trembling with rage. "You lure him into Crenshinibon, allow us to fight- allow me to thimk him dead...and then what? You heal him and set him loose again?"  
  
Entreri's face was flushed, and he was trembling uncontrolably with rage. He was concerned that he would loose control and kill his only friend on Faerun. That thought gave him pause. Friend? Was this the Artemis Entreri of Calimport who had not friends who could betray him? No, he decided, this was not that Entreri. That Entreri had died when he had accidentally killed Drizzt Do'Urden.  
  
Or so he had thought.  
  
He did not like that part of himself anymore, he admitted to himself. That cold, friendless, unloving, unforgiving, ruthless assassin he was no longer.  
  
Jarlaxle roughly pushed him away, and Entreri knew then that the old Entreri would not have allowed that, would not have allowed such an insult to go unrecompenced. He let it go, and felt good for doing so.  
  
"Why?" Entreri whispered. "Why decieve me?"  
  
Jarlaxle relaxed, noting Entreri's calmer countenance.  
  
"I allowed you to see who was better because you had lost your nerve. You lost it and I aided you in regaining it. You won! What does anything else matter?"  
  
"I did not win," shouted Entreri, as out of control as he had ever been in his life. "I lost! I failed! For the first time in my life, I could not best one in battle."  
  
"What is it about Drizzt Do'Urden that so offends you, my friend?" Jarlaxle asked.  
  
That stopped Entreri in his rant. What indeed? He was not the heartless killer he once was. He was changing, undergoing a great change. He could feel it in his heart.  
  
He did not want to be alone.  
  
* * *  
  
"Now ye lis'en here! I want ye to stop th' racket! I'm sick 'n tired o' hearin' ye trainin' that blasted brigade o' yours! I'll not be havin' it!" bellowed Bruenor Battlehammer, in his gruff and oft violent mannor.  
  
Pwent, leader of the famous "Gutbuster" Brigade, a brigade of insanely brave and, in even Bruenor Battlehammer's opinion, foolish (not to mention smelly) dwarves, was busy instructing his recruits to slam into the walls in order to "toughen them up."  
  
Pwent halted in midcharge at the wall, where he had been training a new batch of potential gutbusters for the past hour, his spikey and sharp armor scrapping and grating as he moved (as always) and setting Bruenor's teeth on edge (also as always).  
  
The Eighth and soon-to-be Tenth (long story) king of Mithril Hall winced at the horrible sound (though it could also have been from the smell, Bruenor was undecided).  
  
Pwent hopped about in blustery rage at being interupted in the midst of his demonstration.  
  
"But me king, ye'll be needing a good Gutbuster Brigade for ye're long march home to Mithril Hall!" the excitable and annoyingly energetic dwarf protested.  
  
"I'll be needin' no such thing!" shouted the still-frustrated Bruenor. "An' even if I may, I ain't leavin' fer another tenday, so ye can just be stoppin' the racket! I cann't even hear meself think!"  
  
He turned around and stormed away, down the corridor and made the long climb to what was reverently known among the people of Tentowns as Bruenor's Climb.  
  
Pwent waited a long moment, hopped around the corridor to get himself up to speed, winked at his recruits, and slammed into the wall, shaking and trembling, the jagged edges of his armor carving away huge hunks of the side of the tunnel. There were many "ooooo"s from the crowd of stinky dwarves.  
  
Burenor stood looking out toward tentowns lost in thought when there came a groan from behind him. He turned quickly, and paled at the sight of a very weak Drizzt Do'Urden holding a body draped in his cloak. It didn't take the red hair hanging out from under the cloak for Bruenor Battlehammer to know that his adopted human daughter was seriously injured.  
  
"Me girl," the dwarf breathed.  
  
"She lives," whispered Drizzt, as his legs gave way and he fell forward, into darkness. 


	2. Chapter 2: Breaking of the Companions

Chapter 2 - Breaking of the Companions  
  
Drizzt strayed, strayed from thought and time. There was darkness all about....or was there? He thought it was blackness, but then he thought it might be simply nothing.  
  
Was this death?  
  
He was fully conscious, so he doubted it. He could move around in the void. Well, not in a physical sense, but if he willed himself to go someplace, there he would be.  
  
Suddenly a face reared out of the blackness as if it were a dense fog. Drizzt's heart froze in his chest as he saw who it was.  
  
Ellifain!  
  
Then the rest of her elven figure materialized.  
  
"Drizzt Do'Urden," she snarled in disgust.  
  
Drizzt couldn't speak. He didn't seem to have a mouth to do so.  
  
"The mighty drow, fighter of rightousness!" she mocked.  
  
How could she be speaking to him? She was dead, wasn't she?  
  
"Did you think that killing me would erase the memory of me, O pitiful drow?" shouted Ellifain. It appeared that she could read thoughts as well.  
  
I never wanted to hurt you, Ellifain! shouted Drizzt in his mind. I tried to save you!  
  
"LIAR!!" shrieked Ellifain. "You killed my parents, you destroyed my villiage!"  
  
That was not of my doing, Ellifain!  
  
"You were there!"  
  
I-started Drizzt.  
  
"Look at your life, drow! Look at what you have done!"  
  
She reached out her hands towards Drizzt, who stepped back and drew out Twinkle in a flash of blue, slashing down through Ellifain's right arm.  
  
The blade passed through her arm as if it weren't there.  
  
She reached him and pressed her fingertips against his skull.  
  
The blackness around the two elves faded and images began to flash past, Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, the raid on Ellifain's villiage, Drizzt fleeing the vast drow city, Drizzt in the Underdark. His arrival on the surface world and his training.  
  
His meeting Bruenor and the dwarves. The fear and hatred towards him in the Dale in the early days. The assult of the Crystal Shard on Icewind Dale, Drizzt's defeat of Errtu the Balor, the following defeat and quest for Mithril Hall and the meeting of Entreri.  
  
"Had you not stayed where you belong, you would never have met Entreri," screamed Ellifain. "Had you never met, he would not have continually threatened your friends!"  
  
The journey to Calimport and the horrible confrontation in order to save Regis.  
  
The reclaiming of Mithril Hall. The coming of Drizzt's evil sister to Mithril Hall, bent on revenge and bringing a small army of drow warriors...and Artemis Entreri.  
  
Drizzt saw Wulfgar fall, buried in a great avalanch.  
  
"If you had not left Menzoberranzan, Baenre would never have come to Mithril Hall!" Ellifain shouted triumphantly, feeling the misery in Drizzt increase. "And had you not angered the demon Errtu, Wulfgar would not have been tortured in the Abyss!"  
  
After defeating his sister's assult, and Entreri had escaped, Matron Mother Baenre had herself come to Mithril Hall, with the entire host of the Drow city, to conquor and destroy the dwarves.  
  
Subsequent images rocketed past, until Drizzt was watching, seemingly in slow-motion, the death of Ellifain.  
  
"And had you, drow, stayed where you belonged and had not destroyed my villiage, my death would not have been your fault!" whispered Ellifain, her face inches away from Drizzt's. "Had you stayed whre you belonged, drow, none of these events would have happened!"  
  
Her words cut him worse than if she had hacked him apart, limb by limb.  
  
"He is returning," said a faint, muffled voice, seemingly from nowhere.  
  
And then Ellifain began squeezing her fingers together. Unfortunately Drizzt's head was in the way. She grimaced and dug her fingernails into the flesh of his temples. Drizzt roared in rage and pain and drove his hand into her chest, at the solar plexus. The blow picked her off the ground and flung her thirty feet away.  
  
And Drizzt awoke, erupting from the coma into bright light.  
  
"Glad te see ye decided te come back," said a gruff voice.  
  
***  
  
I am lost. I know not my place in this world, nor do I know my responsibilities anymore. I have somehow lost sight of them though I know not where.  
  
Catti-brie lies deep in the halls of the dwarven mines in a coma. She is between places, between this life and the next. The slightest illness or further injury, perhaps even the slightest neglect on the parts of the clerics tending her, and that careful balance could tip away from the material world.  
  
Away from me.  
  
I now carry a heavy burden. The fault of her injuries is mine, I know. Am I then to become more protective of those I love? Wulfgar made that mistake when he and Catti-brie were to be wed those many years ago. He fell in love with Catti-brie's free spirit, her unbreakable independent streak, as have I, but he became protective of her, as if she were his posession to be bought and then kept on a shelf.  
  
I saw his faults then, and I have tried to not fall into the same traps he did. And yet...the sight of Catti-brie so grievously wounded, her life- blood flowing from her veins onto the dirt, nearly broke me.  
  
I understand the risks involved with our work as we keep bandits and other criminals from waylaying innocent travelers on the way through the Spine of the World. I understand that at any time any of us, Bruenor, Regis, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, or I, could be struck down by one of the many dangers of Icewind Dale, but somehow that possibility, after facing and defeating so many might foes like Errtu the Balor, or Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, or the Matron Mother Baenre, that something so normally defeated like yetis would be able to touch us.  
  
And yet here I am, sitting at Catti-brie's bedside, a bed which could very well be her deathbed, and all that I have ever trusted, all that I have contemplated and know to be right, is thrown to the winds, shattered by a single act.  
  
I want nothing more than to shield Catti-brie from the dangers of the Dale, from the reality of life in the wilderness, and yet I know that to do so would be to kill her indomitable spirit, and by relation kill the very thing in her I love.  
  
What is it about love that makes one feel so powerful and yet so vulnerable? For that is how I feel. When I think of Catti-brie, I know that I am made whole, made stronger, and I feel as if I could conquoer the world with a thought, and at the same time to lose her would mean the end of my life. I would lose the will to live.  
  
It is strange, but Ellifain, or whatever apparition took her form, was right when she spoke to me in my unconsciousness. I would never have believed I would one day say that. Whatever it was that spoke to me there, perhaps Ellifain, perhaps some sort of spirit, or more likely the fevered illusion of a delusional mind, it was correct. Had I never come to the surface, none of these horrible events would have occured.  
  
I am lost.  
  
I know not my way.  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
***  
  
"You have been in here for days! What is your problem, human?" Jarlaxle snapped in frustration. "Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. So be it. You have conquored your demons, Entreri!"  
  
Artemis sat on his small, uncomfortable bed, several days growth of beard on his face, looking haggard and defeated.  
  
It was true. He had been in this room ever since he had learned that Drizzt still breathed. He did not leave, no one came to him but Jarlaxle, he didn't sleep, he barely ate enough to live, so lost was he in his own inner turmoil.  
  
He looked up at the angry drow dully, his expression remaining the same dettached look he had been wearing for three days.  
  
Jarlaxle knew that look well. It was the look of someone who had lost the will to live, to continue on the fight.  
  
"My demons live with Drizzt Do'Urden," Entreri whispered hoarsely.  
  
Jarlaxle leaned close, leering into Entreri's face.  
  
"Then kill him," the drow snarled.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden sat dozing in a chair next to the large bed. Catti-brie breathed still, if shallowly, the thin sheet covering her barely rising and falling.  
  
The room was large and spacious, the walls roughly carved out of the dark rock, torches casting their warm, bronze glow across the bed, bathing it in flickering firelight. Several clerics tended her, whispering their prayers.  
  
The wooden door to the room swung open and Bruenor Battlehammer entered. He glanced at the dozing Drizzt, then moved quietly to the bedside and spoke with one of the dwarven clerics.  
  
"She be gravely injured, me King," said the cleric. "She be hoverin' betw'en the gates of life and death."  
  
Bruenor sighed, a sigh of utter frustration and fear mingled with heavy sorrow. It was as if a great weight was hanging about his shoulders.  
  
"Keep ye trying," he said, and knelt at the bedside, taking the hand of his adopted daughter in his. It was clammy and chilled, and was the pale gray color of death. The pulse was extremely faint. Bruenor did not think himself a strong or powerful dwarf--he knew he was, it was a simple fact-- but seeing this human girl like this nearly broke him.  
  
He choked, trying to keep the emotions buried. He was a dwarven king! He should not show weakness! Oft does the heart refuse to obey what the mind commands. It follows its own road. Bruenor bowed his head until his brow laid upon the cold arm of Catti-brie.  
  
"Come back to me, ye girl...' he whispered. "Don't ye be leavin' me! Don't ye be doin' that!"  
  
And Bruenor Battlehammer wept.  
  
***  
  
Jarlaxle pulled the cowl of his cloak tighter about his face. He walked briskly through the dark streets of Luskan, deep in thought. He was walking this chilly night in an attempt to let off some of the welling frustration inside him.  
  
Humans were such strange creatures, he thought. So caught up in their own petty emotions as to miss the things which were truly important. Most humans spent their entire lives so caught up in the moment, looking forward only far enough to see the next step, that they were often led into disaster. It came from not living their lives in Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle believed. In the great Drow city, any one of the humans in Luskan, or Calimport, or the Realms, would not survive half of a day, perhaps not even half an hour. In Menzoberranzan, intriuge and conspiracy were as normal as this horrible sun these pathetic humans so relied upon. It was a necessary thing to be continually on your toes, always thinking ahead of your enemies by several steps, like a chess game, carefully considering what every move will accomplish and what the reactions to it will be.  
  
Jarlaxle and his band of renegades had survived in the Underdark, in Menzoberranzan, for many years because they were the most cunning of the cunning (at least in Jarlaxle's opinion). To Jarlaxle, some things were important and some things were not, down there, you learned what was required for survival and that was the path you followed, it was very simple. Having a pride issue with a drow warrior was not one of them. He thought Entreri weak for his self-destructive obsession. It was, he reflected, exactly the same as before. He though himself rightfully frustrated. After all, hadn't he arranged so much in order for Entreri to confront the drow, and hadn't he arranged for the drow to be defeated? All for Entreri, so that the dangerous assassin could work with Jarlaxle, have a chance at a productive life instead of worrying about that blasted drow. And now Entreri had gone full circle, returned to his original status as The-Most-Highly-Depressed.  
  
Entreri was like the drow, calculating, cunning, and lived for the challenge and danger of the edge. Jarlaxle knew Entreri well enough to determine that. Entreri was calculating, always five steps ahead of his foes-until Drizzt Do'Urden got involved. And then it was as if his mind simply shut down and Entreri became worse than a simpleton.  
  
Jarlaxle cursed the renegade drow, wondering why the world had to be plauged with beings who held to moral ideals. If it weren't for that blasted drow, Jarlaxle's plans would be proceeding! What magic did this drow possess that would so curse Entreri? What spell could do such a thing?  
  
Yes, Entreri was like the drow; cold, calculating. But he was still human, and still retained the human traits. Stupidity was hereditary, Jarlaxle had concluded, among the human population.  
  
He turned into a dark alleyway without thinking about where he was going, so lost in thought and frustration, still finding no way of releaving his tention and anger, no way to vent.  
  
There was the ever-so-soft crunch of a foot coming down on gravel from behind Jarlaxle. Cowl still tight about his face, he smiled grimly.  
  
Jarlaxle turned around and regarded the stranger from within the shadows of his hood. He stood confidently, back straight, eyes making two lavander pricks in the night from beneath the shadowy cowl.  
  
Two more ruffians emerged from dark shadows behind Jarlaxle, cutting off the theoretical escape route, though the angry drow was hardly going to run away from three pieces of human trash.  
  
"You mean to rob me, then," stated the drow from the depths of his cloak.  
  
The man standing at the mouth of the alleyway stepped closer and into a beam of moonlight.  
  
"It's nothing personal," he said, shrugging, drawing a short sword from his belt and grinning in anticipation.  
  
"Of course it isn't," said Jarlaxle. "Neither is this."  
  
He exploded into motion. His hand snapped out towards the thief, little more than a blur. There was a short whistling sound.  
  
It took the thief a few moments to realize that there was a throwing knife embedded in his chest. His grin faded and he gaped at the drow, the pain messeges just now reaching his brain. He grasped at the knife with both hands and regarded Jarlaxle strangely, as if he weren't actually seeing Jarlaxle but merely staring that direction. His legs grew weak, his knees buckled and he slumped to the cobbles.  
  
"Right," said Jarlaxle, his frustration somewhat abated, turning to the other two thieves knives simply appearing in his clenched fists. "Who's next?"  
  
The battle lust was flowing in him already, he could feel the call and appeal of a fight. He began concentrating on focusing his aggression and frustration and anger into the coming fight. If they charged, he would meet them, if they ran he would pursue, and if they did nothing, they would find knives in their throats.  
  
The two thieves glanced at each other and back to Jarlaxle, who sprang upon that moment to pull back his hood and reveal his drowish features.  
  
The color drained from their faces and there was an awkward silence in the alleyway.  
  
Then the thieves turned tail and ran.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt came awake.  
  
He blinked into the torch-light and glanced about the room to get his bearings. The memories of all that had happened flooded back to him suddenly and he felt his stomach sink. He sat up and saw the motionless form of Catti-brie laying under the thin sheet, a sheen of sweat glowing on her face in the torch light and her red hair plastered to her pale, gray brow. Her face wore the gray of death.  
  
Bruenor knelt still by her bedside, her hand firmly gripped in his.  
  
"I am sorry," Drizzt rasped from a mouth that seemed unused to obeying commands. His mouth felt thick and his tongue swollen.  
  
Bruenor slowly turned to regard the elf.  
  
"She be traveling to th' other side..." Bruenor said, his eyes sunken and voice hollow. It was as if the light of life in those eyes, once on fire with passion and energy, had somehow gone out. He sighed. "I knew it would a'ways be dangerous. I jus' never expected....."  
  
His words struck a painful cord in Drizzt's heart and soul. Bruenor might well have simply taken up his axe and driven it through Drizzt's heart, for all the pain that it caused to him. The elf bowed his head, eyes closed, fight back the emotions.  
  
"S'not your fault," Bruenor said quietly. "Couldn't be avoided. We always been living the dangerous life. Sooner o' later, I knew reality'd catch us up."  
  
"No," croaked Drizzt, rising to his feet and looking at the pale form of Catti-brie. "You're wrong. I caused this. I am the cause of all your troubles, my friends. My mere presence on the surface world is a hindrence and detriment to you all."  
  
Drizzt took a final long glance at Catti-brie, etching her features into his memory forever, then turned and left the room before Bruenor could say another word.  
  
He headed for his quarters, collected his things, and departed the dwarven mines soon after.  
  
***  
  
The thieves ran down the dark alleyways of Luskan, not caring where they ended up, nor by what route they got there, they just wanted away from the drow.  
  
Drow! In Luskan! It was an extremely frightening thought, and an entirely unwelcome one. Where there was one drow, there were almost always more. Except for that rouge drow they had heard about, Drizzt Do'Urden, and he was rumored to be some kind of "hero" in the northern lands.  
  
They charged through turns, breathing becoming labored, shoving past the occasional walker in the alleys. Their boots clopped on the cobblestones of the alleyway with loud echos.  
  
Finally they stopped, panting for breath.  
  
"I think we lost 'im!" said the one.  
  
There was the rustle of a cloak from the darkness and the thieves caught sight of a black cloak whip across between alleyways.  
  
"Wha' was that?" shouted the other, each figgiting and nervously grasping their weapons, only a knife and short sword each.  
  
Meanwhile, Jarlaxle thought he would take a less traditional approach. He concentrated on the spot where the two were standing.  
  
An orb of darkness appeared over them. The thieves gave shouts of alarm from within.  
  
Then Jarlaxle charged, a dozen twirling knives leading him into the orb.  
  
He entered the orb and lost all vision, but not his other, hightened senses. He grasped a dagger in each hand.  
  
He felt a presence coming up on his left and so spun to the right, right past the unsuspecting thief, and then as he spun, brought out his right arm, dagger extended horizontally. The dagger sliced through flesh, grating against ribs, and slid home with, Jarlaxle thought, a satisfyingly wet sound.  
  
The air exploded from the lungs of the hapless thief, whose right lung instantly deflated and began filling with blood.  
  
Wrenching the dagger free, Jarlaxle was already bringing the other knife down, to sink into the thief's right shoulder. Keeping that dagger firmly embedded, the drow brought up the other, already bloodied, dagger, and ran it across the thief's throat.  
  
The limp body was already falling away when Jarlaxle felt the other thief coming in from behind. He cocked his head slightly, tensed his legs, and when the thief was nearly upon him, sprang into the air back over the head of the oncoming human, his feet rising over his head, performing a spectacular heels-over-head flip, dagger carving a bloody line across the human's scalp as he flipped by, to land easily behind the human.  
  
Before the human could even cry out or touch the wound on his head, Jarlaxle snaked his left arm around from behind the human and plunged the dagger into the thief's throat, wriggling it about. Then, for good measure, he stabbed the human in the back, the blade slipping between ribs and gouging the lung.  
  
The orb of darkness fell away.  
  
The body slumped to the ground.  
  
Jarlaxle sighed, his anger abated, then turned and walked away, wiping his daggers clean on the clothes of the victims as he did so. It was, Jarlaxle thought as he slipped quietly away into the shadows and then from rooftop to rooftop, almost too easy.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt stormed out of the entrance to Mithril Hall and into the blazing glory of the sunset and squinted into the light. The sight triggered a memory of Catti-brie and Drizzt sitting upon a similar hill and watching the sunrise together. He felt the sorrow well up in himself again, but used a wall of blind rage and confusion to suppress it.  
  
"Where are ye going?" came a shout from behind him. Drizzt closed his eyes. He had just wanted to get away. He didn't care where and he didn't care how. He turned, slowly, to regard Bruenor.  
  
Drizzt smiled wryly.  
  
"Does it matter?" he said.  
  
"It does te me," said Bruenor.  
  
"In that case, away from here, away from the surface," stated Drizzt hollowly.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Drizzt shook his head, knowing the Bruenor could never understand what he had caused, how he felt.  
  
"You have no idea what pain I have caused by my mere presence on the surface world," Drizzt nearly shouted. "You will never have the guilt that I carry! Never have to look at another elf and see the face of Ellifain before you! But I? I seem to be destined for sorrow and for pain! Perhaps that is my payment for defying my race and coming to the surface!"  
  
Bruenor stared at him in surprise, taken entirely aback.  
  
"I thought perhaps I could find love with Catti-brie, but now I've killed her too!"  
  
Drizzt's voice cracked, and he could continue no longer.  
  
"I told ye tha' wasn't yer fault!" shouted Bruenor.  
  
Drizzt turned away in disgust, and began moving off, down the path towards the Spine of the World.  
  
"An' she's no' dead yet!" cried Bruenor at Drizzt's receeding back.  
  
Drizzt didn't stop but kept walking.  
  
"Ye damn fooled elf! Don't ye leave me now! Don't ye leave HER!" bellowed Bruenor.  
  
Drizzt slowed and then halted. He closed his eyes.  
  
"She'll be needing ye before this is over, elf. Don't ye leave me now," continued Bruenor softly. "I'm losing me daughter."  
  
He paused for a long moment.  
  
"I don't want te lose me son as well."  
  
Drizzt opened his eyes and turned to Bruenor.  
  
"I cannot," he whispered. "My journey appears to be one destined to be for me alone."  
  
"Always the excuse, isn't it?" snapped Bruenor.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Destiny this and Destiny that. Is it really Destiny that causes your lonliness, or is it that ye're afraid to get close to someone....too close to someone? I seen the look in yer eyes, elf. I know ye love me daughter, and I happen to know tha' she loves you too."  
  
Bruenor shook his head and sighed.  
  
"But ye be doin' what ye want, because I know ye'll be doin' tha' anyway."  
  
Slowly, Drizzt began to walk away. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.  
  
He was alone again.  
  
It was like when he had first come to the surface world from Menzoberranzan.  
  
He was alone again.  
  
***  
  
Entreri paced back and forth in his quarters, boots thunking hollowly on the stone floor. He was agitated. He was frozen into inaction by this surprising and horrifying turn of events, and was attempting to quell his agitation by pacing.  
  
It wasn't working.  
  
"Then kill him."  
  
Jarlaxle's words haunted him, echoing in his mind to the point of annoyance. He felt the anger behind them, even now, the frustration. He knew that Jarlaxle was disappointed with his inablitly to handle the situation promptly, but then again, the drow would never understand the connection between Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri, couldn't understand the level of loathing and pity they held for each other.  
  
Entreri wanted to rush out and fight Drizzt again, one last time, but he knew also that he had done that before and knew that the very feeling showed him to be the unworthy of the two.  
  
In their last confrontation Drizzt had come away clearly the victor, he tried to convince himself.  
  
No, his mind responded. Drizzt Do'Urden had clearly taken the moral victory, but hadn't Entreri defeated the drow? Hadn't he shoved his hand through the blasted dark elf's chest when he had foolishly turned his back on the skilled assassin? Hadn't he left the drow to die, crushed and bested?  
  
Only the tiniest part of his mind dared to remind Entreri the circumstances of that "victory."  
  
But he wouldn't have listened anyway.  
  
The human stopped his pacing and smiled. He collected his belongings, strapping his enchanted sword and dagger to his waist, storing some supplies in a pouch, hastily scratched a note to Jarlaxle, and quickly paid a visit to Rambaret, the wizard. There were a few quick words he needed to have with the wizard.  
  
Soon after, he was out in the dark streets of Lusken and before five minutes had passed had scaled the wall near the gates and moved, silent and deadly as a ghost, into the dark night, heading north.  
  
Jarlaxle found the note two days later.  
  
***  
  
Well, my drow friend, you were right all along. Drizzt Do'Urden, in our last meeting, won clearly the moral victory. But not the victory of skill. I did. I left him battered and bleeding on the floor.  
  
The fact that I was aided in my fight by my allies matters not. Drizzt Do'Urden surrounded himself with the most powerful of friends and allies-- as did I. And compared to the power of Crenshinibon, Jarlaxle and his drow band, all of Drizzt's friends who looked on helpless as I drove my hand through his chest were not worthy enough to confront Artemis Entreri.  
  
For many months after that victory, I had thought myself bested, though I had thought him dead. I felt that I had won unfairly, that I had cheated for my victory--but only beause I always worked alone then. Now I understand. And I also understand some of which Dirzzt meant by the concept of friend.  
  
Do'Urden was under the belief that because he had friends, that he loved and was loved, that he would always be better because he had something worthwhile to fight for. I understand that idea now. It is indeed worthwhile to cultivate friendships and alliances with those of lesser or equal power and skill, to better work as a team and achieve a communal victory, that all feel satisfied that they had worked their best in unison to achieve the desired outcome.  
  
That is, I admit, and did admit before, when we destroyed Crenshinibon, a truly....satisfying feeling. Perhaps I was mistaken to have worked alone all those years, to deny the feeling of companionship and mutual respect connected with friends.  
  
Now I must work alone one last time.  
  
This is a personal battle between two warriors, not two companionships. This is something I must do, for my own peace of mind, and for his, I think likely. Whether I live or die is immaterial. I actually do not care, for I am secure in the knowlege that my life is no longer a lie.  
  
This is not a vengeful vendeta, nor a futile pursuit, or a confrontation between rivals. This, I believe, is the key to the one epiphany, the last revelation before I can truly embrace my past, my present, and who I am to become.  
  
This is the final duel.  
  
--Artemis Entreri  
  
Next Chapter: "Seperate Demons, Seperate Journeys" 


	3. Chapter Three: Seperate Demons, Seperate...

Chapter Three: Seperate Demons, Seperate Journeys  
  
I am angry. At whom or what is unclear. Perhaps it is myself for bringing this misery and pain upon myself, or perhaps I am angry at myself for bringing this upon my friends. Or perhaps am I angry at Ellifain for showing to me the truth? Or I could be angry at my companions for being my friends and bringing it upon themselves, or is it at Catti-brie for allowing herself to be grieviously injured?  
  
Whatever it is, I know but one thing for certain anymore.  
  
My life was a lie.  
  
It was a painful illusion, a perception of my place and my destiny which did not match reality. How foolish my actions seem now, my belief that it was Entreri which was living the lie. Now I see that he was in essence correct.  
  
Perhaps this only illuminates how dangerous and blind is the being who considers him or her self knowing the answers to all the questions. The fanatic only cares about the achievement of the goal and will willingly kill or die to see through the achievement of that goal. It is the peak of self-deception.  
  
Looking back, I see now how fanatical I had become. So secure in believing I was right and held all the answers to life's questions.  
  
I was a fool.  
  
I was so desperate to believe that I had abandoned my blood, my sisters and brothers, my race and my birthplace for the better that I was willing to die to see that inner security fulfilled. I was led astray by my own inner map of morality.  
  
Ellifain was right.  
  
It is all my fault.  
  
I should never have come up from Menzoberranzan, never left what increasingly appears to have been my true destiny. I should have confronted the drow and died for it. That would have been far better than the long, drawn-out tragety which is the life of Drizzt Do'Urden.  
  
Now I wander amid the biting winds of the Dale, looking for purpose but finding none. I feel the hope fading, I see the darkness of reality spreading in my mind. I am beginning to suspect that the dawn may not come.  
  
I wonder, is that a bad thing?  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
***  
  
It was barely aware of it's surroundings anymore. No mortal had dared disturb the great worm for close to a century, no foolish warrior had challanged it, no shadow of a thief had crept in, fingers itching for dragon's treasure.  
  
For good reason.  
  
The legend of the beast was renown throughout Icewind Dale-renown and feared. In the aware part of the worm's mind, it felt a deep pleasure and pride in that thought. Reactions of horror, fear, trepidation and awe were not ill-deserved for the giant manevolent creature, for the beast had earned every lasting one of those fears, earned itself even in the nightmares of children who had been born long after the dragon had ceased to travel out into the open world as it had many centuries before. In past years it had often soared over Ten-Towns and the surrounding snowy terrain and pillaged the small seperate communites of Ten-Towns and even the tribes of war-loving barbarians who lived out in the tundra, carrying back the treasure-horde to it's lair on the outskirts of the Spine of the World mountains.  
  
It remembered then the pleasures of raiding and burning. But the dragon was old, over five-hundred years so. Not that the body could not move any slower than before, but that the dragon had sated it's appetite for gold and riches long before and was contented to rest itself in the bowels of the mountains and sleep, until the next pitiable victim encountered the terrible worm.  
  
The frost-colored behemoth shifted position slightly as it lay over it's treasure-countless jewels, thousands of individual coins, hundreds of gold bars, many priceless vases and chalices lay scattered across the stone floor of the cave in great heaps.  
  
Oh, it could barely contain itself as it thought and dreamed of another challange, another worthy, or unworthy, opponent entering it's home, it's lair, and realizing in one horrifying moment, that their small, unimportant life would end and their body left battered and broken in an unmarked and unknown grave deep within the earth as the burning cold issued from the dragon's mouth and snuffed away whatever life stood before it.  
  
For it was a frost-dragon and it's name was BurningIce.  
  
Of course, it was impossible for the dragon to know that it's wish would become reality sooner than it thought.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt stormed down the dirt "road" which led of out Icewind Dale, pulling his forest-green cloak tighter around himself in order to stay warm amid the howl and sting of the winds.  
  
Kelvin's Cairn and the Dwarven mines were now out of sight and had been for a day. Drizzt hardly cared, so caught up in his own self-pity was he.  
  
Soon enough the day wore on and the chill of winter came surging in on the winds of the dale. As the sun began it's descent once again, it began to snow heavily, the hard winds seeming to blow right for Drizzt's face, slashing ice crystals across his cheeks and blasting through his cloak as if it weren't even there.  
  
He traveled through the night without stopping.  
  
Just as the night began to lighten, the road Drizzt was following began to sink down below the level of ground around it. There was a lone tree standing by the roadside, its branches long ago stripped of leaves. Drizzt realized that the area was potentially ripe for an ambush, but his anger and fatigue made him somewhat more careless.  
  
Had he been on the alert, he would have noted the figures crouched just out of sight in small dips in the ground above the road.  
  
As it was, it wasn't until an arrow whistled into the tree just above his head that he realized they were there.  
  
***  
  
Entreri trudged wearily along the road that was little more than a narrow dirt rut in the landscape, deep grooves carved down it on either side, creating little trenches, or moats. Entreri recognized these as wagon tracks, from the many caravans that braved the harsh and dangerous road to the Spine of the World and then beyond, to Icewind Dale. The newest tracks were fresh, probably less than half a day ahead, Entreri knew, feeling pleased that his tracking skills had not yet faded.  
  
Closer and closer to the edge of the wilderness Entreri moved, retracing that same path he had once trod long ago when in pursuit of Regis the Halfling. For the first few hours of darkness, he had moved, easily in the dark with his infrared vision, with meaning and purpose and energy. Then, as he began to tire, slowly but surely Entreri began to calm down, to lose the driving purpose of his mission. He could feel the angered passion he had begun with slowly slipping away.  
  
Now, hours later and miles closer, as the sun began to rise and the world to gradually lighten towards the dawn, Entreri felt worry and uncertainty fill his heart once again.  
  
Did he really want to do this? Did he want to confront the drow? Did he even want to know which was the greater swordsman? In light of his recent conclusions, most of which he had revealed to Jarlaxle in his note, only the tinyest fraction of his brain dared to whisper no.  
  
Silently, he brought up a mental image of the drow from their last meeting, in the bowels of Crenshinibon, standing at ease and confident, his lavander eyes revealing an almost pity for the obsessed human. Anger at the drow's rightous attitude spurred Entreri on, restoring his calm countenance and a self-assurance that he was indeed pursuing the proper course.  
  
He was now making his way up a fair rise in the terrain. His feet felt heavy, each foot as if an invisable weight were attached to them. Something caused him to stop in his tracks, something to cause his ears to prick up though the sound was too indistinct to be identified. He listened carefully and was rewarded when the sound came again after only a few seconds.  
  
The familiar twang of an arrow being loosed from a bow.  
  
Entreri sprinted up the last part of the rise and paused as he reached the crest to take in the scene at the bottom of the slope. His blood raced.  
  
The scene below was one of chaos. The caravan Entreri had realized was ahead of him had formed its wagons in a circle-a familiar defense among the traveling caravans in the regions-and the hired protectors were within the circle, valianting defending the merchants and supplies, not to mention their lives, with vigor and zeal. Many had longbows and crossbows. Arrow shafts crisscrossed the field, impaling themselves in flesh, orc or human, the ground or the wood of wagons.  
  
Their adversaries, Entreri recognized with distaste, were orcs. Lots of orcs. Perhaps twoscore, maybe more.  
  
Entreri was suddenly conscious of his sword, Charon's Claw and dagger, hanging confortably at either hip. He realized that he had not been in an actual fight since the quest to destroy Crenshinibon and that he missed the conflict, the ring of blade against blade.  
  
Drawing his weapons, he hefted them comfortably, feeling their balance and knowing their deadly precision.  
  
He charged down the slope, towards the fighting.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt rolled to the right, away from the tree trunk as another arrow whistled in towards him, and to his feet, drawing his scimitars as he did, seeming as though they simply appeared in his hands. His cloak floated behind him dramatically.  
  
Brandishing his weapons and standing in the middle of the roadway and with enemies on all sides, Drizzt knew he was very deffinately outnumbered. There he stood and took in the spectacle as orcs and humans and goblins and five frost giants rose up all around him on either side of the road, many moving down into the road, thus encircling the drow.  
  
He was in serious trouble. There were at least forty opponents, five of which were frost giants. Drizzt was momentarily stunned. He had never known, in all of his experience, these races to ever work together on anything.  
  
Then, a human stepped to lip looking down into the road, smiling confidently. There were bandages on his arms, and he was wearing a bright ruby hung from a chain about his neck.  
  
Drizzt's eyes opened wide. He recognized that man! It was the thief the wizard had been torturing with the female drow's whip.  
  
"Well, well, well," said the human confidently. "We meet again, drow."  
  
"You!" spat Drizzt furiously.  
  
"Me, Tomar Aldorin at your service!" the man grinned, giving a mocking bow, arm flung out to the side.  
  
"I gave you mercy!"  
  
"Don't tell me that you, mighty warrior, are begging for mercy?" sneered the man, apparently enjoying the thought.  
  
"No, I merely comment on your own stupidity!" snarled Drizzt.  
  
"Be wary, drow," he spat the word with great distaste, "that your words do not condemn you to death."  
  
Drizzt felt the rage building, the anger and frustration of all of his problems, his hate, his anger, welling up to replace any conscious feeling.  
  
He was the Hunter again.  
  
"Oh, wait," said the man, mockingly pretending to just have thought of what he was saying, "you're going to be killed anyway. My mistake."  
  
"Yes, it was," remarked Drizzt.  
  
The man glared at the dark elf.  
  
"Goodbye, Drizzt Do'Urden."  
  
He turned away and flicked his hand in the general direction of Drizzt.  
  
"Kill him," he said.  
  
Ten bows came up, ten arrows nocked and cocked. There were ten loud twangs in the still of the dawn as ten arrows were loosed, all at a singular target.  
  
***  
  
Entreri reached the first of the orcs, who was staring away towards the circle of caravans, watching the battle.  
  
A jeweled dagger plunged into its back. And then a sword took its ugly head off its shoulders and deposited it messily to the ground before it could cry out. The body stood there, Entreri's dagger still embedded in it's back.  
  
The dagger's life-force sucking ability then activated and Entreri gasped as the familiar but horrible sensation of the orc's life-force being ripped from it's body and pumped into Entreri's. He felt it rejuvenating him, restoring his energy and stamina to him. Finished with its horrible work, the dagger ceased its power and the body slid off of the blade and to the ground.  
  
There were three orcs nearby and they turned about at the sound of the body hitting the ground to see Entreri standing calmly over their comrad.  
  
They shouted in alarm and anger and, hefting their weapons, charged the deadly human.  
  
Entreri entered the fray in full, sword and dagger flashing in the dawn light.  
  
The three orcs spread out, trying to flank the human, as they charged. Ignoring the left and right opponents for the moment, but registering their movements at the edges of his vision, he attacked the middle orc, which hefted its sword over it's head and as Entreri reached striking distance, the orc brought its weapon down. Hard.  
  
Entreri casually lifted Charon's Claw to deflect the expected strike, and then dropped to his knees before the orc, and drove his dagger into the beast's belly.  
  
A second later, drained of energy, the body slid away. Staying where he was, purposefully presenting an inviting target for the remaining orcs, he expected them to rush in at his vunerable back. They did.  
  
He waited until they were nearly upon him, then rolled to the right, directly between them, and sprang to his feet. Both of the orcs had struck for the head and finding no head there, over balanced and continued on by. Entreri extended his arms out to either side and stabbed each as they continued to the ground.  
  
Meanwhile, the orcs had broken through the circle of wagons at multiple points and the clang of steel upon steel and the screams and howls of wounded and dying now echoed up into the still of the morning.  
  
Nodding at the still bodies in satisfaction in a job well done, Entreri hefted his sword and dagger and continued down the slope, into the thick of pitched battle.  
  
***  
  
Fortunately for Drizzt, most of the archers weren't very good and probably wouldn't have hit him anyway. Several arrows were sailing true, however.  
  
Deep into the Hunter, there was no reaction, no wince, no hesitation. There were threats. They must be elliminated. Up came the scimitars and Drizzt spun, swords weaving before him, swatting arrow after arrow from the air. So attuned was he to his surroundings that he caught one of the arrows on his blade, using its momentem to flip it completely around the blade and hurl it into the lone tree next to the other arrow.  
  
He skidded to a halt, spraying snow into the air. His many opponents drew their swords and charged. Anticipating the clash, Drizzt snarled, feeling his rage explode into his arms and legs, and he charged them, turning to the left, and ran down the road, straight at several of the approaching human figures, loping off the head of a far-too-eager goblin as he did.  
  
Swatting aside their meager defences, he slammed into them, scimitars whipping before him, acting like a large and sharp meatgrinder.  
  
He took off hands and arms and heads as he furiously hacked his way into their ranks. Totally unexpecting such a ferocious assult, the humans panicked, trying to get away from the drow and his spinning blades of death.  
  
Suddenly finding himself some room to work in, Drizzt set his feet as a brave, or possibly stupid, opponent charged him, brandishing a sword. The human thrust ahead with his blade, Drizzt responding by knocking it away.  
  
What followed was a three-move duel. The human attacked again, his sword slashing out horizontally, clearly hoping to open Drizzt's belly from kidney to kidney. First move. Drizzt deflected the attack with Icingdeath, flipping it up and over their heads as the second move. The sword tore itself free of the human's fingers, selecting the chest of one of his companions as it's resting place. Drizzt then took off the human's head with Twinkle. Third move.  
  
The body fell away. Unfortunately, Drizzt was now surrounded by at least a score of humans and orcs, all with very sharp weapons. All pointed Drizzt's way. He narrowed his lavander eyes in anger and felt for the pouch at his side bearing Guen. He felt the familiar shape of the figurine and grasped it through the leather and shouted the name of his panther friend.  
  
With a loud warcry, the enemies charged inward towards Drizzt, hoping numbers to overwhelm the skilled drow warrior. Only there was one singularly louder roar which met them, leading the attack of a six-hundred pound panther which, not having been called recently, had quite a lot of pent-up energy to use. Unfortunately for the bandits, this energy was directed at them in the particular manner of claws and jaws.  
  
Drizzt turned to the other charging side, and barrelled into them, thrusting his scimitars ahead of him, close together, and prised the wall of sharp swords open by opening his arms and pressing his scimitars against the two nearest weapons, turning them away.  
  
Panther and drow fought, fought well, against overwhelming odds.  
  
***  
  
Entreri walked casually through the ranks of orcs, slashing and stabbing, his sword and dagger constantly moving, weaving a dazzling trail in the air before him. Soon enough he reached the circle of wagons and broke into a sprint, leaping into the air and nimbly clambering to the top of the wagon and surveyed the battle within.  
  
The humans were fighting valiantly, but the orc forces were like a raging flood against them. Men were falling everywhere.  
  
Hefting his weapons and taking a deep breath, Entreri did a forward flip down into the arena, landing on the shoulders of an orc, the sudden pressure breaking its spine. As it fell, Entreri leaped into the fray, slamming against the back of yet another orc, driving his dagger deep. He twisted it in the body for good measure, then let it fall.  
  
Then he began to spin in the close quarters of the battle, remaining in the same spot, but rotating around, hacking into orcs all around him, driving sword and dagger into them.  
  
An explosion erupted behind him, at the other side of the circle. Orcs were hurtled into the air, as were the various parts of orcs as the bright orange fireball rose into the heavens and became black smoke. Through the thinner line of orcs, Entreri caught a glance of a mage, deep in the throws of casting another spell.  
  
The fireball shot its way straight for the large group of orcs Entreri was now fighting. His eyes widened in horror, and he dived to the ground. Or tried to. The fireball struck the orcs before him and exploded, the shockwave picking him up and hurtling him backward into the air. He heard a loud crunch as he was blasted through the side of one of the wagons. The cloth covering deflated and fell upon him, and all was lost to darkness.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt spun, swinging his blades back and forth. Enemies were pressing in on all sides. He was taking hits, not serious, but nicks and light slashes. His knuckles were split open and blood flowed freely over his fingers from all of the punches he had delivered.  
  
Sensing an attack from behind, he flipped Icingdeath back over his head, swinging it so that it was parallel with his back, deflecting a blow intended to impale him, without even looking. At the same time, he parryed a five-move attack by the opponent in front of him, deflecting the strikes, using the tip of Twinkle to lift the man's sword up and out, bringing Icingdeath back from behind him and thrust it into the bandit's chest.  
  
Instantly, as the body fell away, two more bandits came to take the place of their fallen comrade. Beginning to tire, Drizzt gasped in a breath and pressed into them, scimitars driving and sticking. Sensing an attack from the side, Drizzt leaped away, only slightly too late, as the sword nicked him across the thigh in midleap.  
  
Wincing in pain, Drizzt twisted awkwardly to avoid the next strike, and came down hard on his left foot. It buckled under him and he fell to the red-stained snow. From all around, bandits leaped upon him.  
  
***  
  
Entreri came awake.  
  
The sounds of battle were all around him. He was suffocating under the wagon cover. He flailed his arms about, trying to free himself from its confines. Growing frustrated, he drove Charon's Claw through the material, and slit it open. He tore himself free of the tangled cloth, leaped from the wagon back to the ground, and slashed into the nearest orc.  
  
He found that there were significantly less orcs about, noting that many were charred. The mage had been busy. There was probably a score, perhaps less now. Entreri sprinted up to one orc engaged with another human defender, and furiously slashed and hacked at its vulnerable back. It fell away with a cry which ended in a gurgle. The human nodded at Entreri in thanks, and Entreri nodded back. Then he turned, sensing a presence coming in from behind, meeting an orc blade edge to edge, shoving it down and to the ground, then struck at the orc's throat with his dagger, once, again, again, until the creature fell away with only a bloody mass for a neck.  
  
A whole group of five orcs surged over their companion then and launched a full-out assult against him. Entreri gave a shout of challange and attacked, turning away their pikes as they came in, Charon's Claw slicing through the wooden shaft of one, removing it's spiked tip. Holding nothing more than a short stick, the orc stared at its severed weapon for a long moment, before Entreri's sword found its belly and drove into the soft flesh, slashing vital organs and piercing armor. Without pausing, Entreri tore the sword from the corpse and swung to the left, sword swinging out to catch the orc's searching pike, deflecting its strike, and before the orc could summon up any defense, Entreri stepped close, inside the orc's defense, and drove his dagger, now slick with orc blood, into the orc's armor, which the blade sliced through as if it were tin foil and stabbed the heart.  
  
The orc fell.  
  
Entreri turned to face the rest of his foes, sinking to his knees as an orc blade sailed over his head. He drove Charon's Claw into the orc, then sprang to his feet, spun the orc corpse around. The orc's companion had struck for Entreri's side, but now impaled its dead friend and as it stood, surprised, Entreri stabbed it with his sword. Both orcs fell upon the earth. Then Entreri spun again, this time to his left, Charon's Claw extended horizontally. The orc lifted its pike shaft to meet the strike, but the enchanted sword sliced through the wood and continued on to pass through the neck as well.  
  
***  
  
Bruenor stood upon Bruenor's Climb outside of the dwarven mines, deep in thought and reflection. He thought of Catti-brie, of her as a young child, smiling and happy, Catti-brie as a young girl, innocent as a flower and beautiful as a princess, Catti-brie and her engagement with Wulfgar...  
  
A cleric slowly emerged from the mines and came to stand behind and slightly to the left of the king.  
  
"Me king," he said grimly.  
  
Bruenor turned to regard the cleric sadly.  
  
"Has she...?" Bruenor choked and could not continue.  
  
"Ye best come see her," said the cleric quietly. "Te say yer piece afore she slips away."  
  
Bruenor nodded glumly, and his once proud shoulders slumped.  
  
"Aye, that I should be doin'," Bruenor said distractedly.  
  
The dwarves turned their backs upon the glaring sun and entered the mines once again. To Bruenor that day, it seemed as the longest walk of his life.  
  
***  
  
As the first bandit leaped into the air, sword pointed down towards Drizzt, the dark elf lifted his scimitars and allowed the foolish human to impale himself upon the blades. Drizzt then kicked his legs into the air, doing a handstand, kicking the bandit square in the back. The body was launched into the air to slam into the ranks surrounding Drizzt.  
  
Using his momentem, Drizzt launched himself into a head-over-heels flip, which lifted him clear of the ranks of bandits to land on his feet on the left side of the road, on the rise. Many pursued, scrabbling up the side of the incline after the escaping elf.  
  
He scurried to the top and was forced to leap again, this time to the right, as a frost giant's club hurtled down to crush the pursuing humans as they crested the rise.  
  
Drizzt wasted no time in quickly sticking the giant in the calves with his scimitars, slapping them across the giant's tough hide, trying to sever the hamstring. He didn't get to it in time.  
  
With a roar of pain, the giant swatted Drizzt away into the air at least ten feet, to land on the unyielding tundra hard. The drow lost his hold on his prized weapons and Icingdeath bounced away to the left and Twinkle to the right. The giant was within striking distance in a single stride and lifted it's monstrous club high into the air, preparing to crush Drizzt like an umpleasant insect.  
  
Body numb from the landing, dazed, battered and bleeding, Drizzt could barely see straight. It was, he reflected, a very bad start to the day.  
  
The club descended and Drizzt watched it interestedly, dettachedly.  
  
There was a feral scream of rage and Guenhwavar gave a mighty leap into the air, sailing high and free, into the oncoming path of the descending club. There was a sickening crunch as the two, cat and club, collided. The giant drove the cat and his club into the earth with the power of his swing.  
  
Drizzt stared, eyes wide, in absolute horror at the indentation in the ground right before him. Something clicked in him and he grabbed the figureine in his pouch and quickly dismissed the cat back to the Astral plane-if it was not too late.  
  
He rolled and retrieved his scimitars quicker than the giant thought possible. Then Drizzt stood, his eyes burning like a lavander inferno. If there was part of his mind that had not previously become the Hunter, the whole of his reality was now swallowed by a red wall of sheer and unadulterated rage. Even though the drow was much smaller than the giant, the giant saw the expression on Drizzt's face-an expression that spoke of absolute death for the giant and every last one of his companions-and found himself afraid.  
  
The giant took an uncertain step back. Twinkle's normal blue glow intensified until it was as a miniature star in the day, casting a blue tint on the landscape.  
  
Drizzt charged then, and so full of adrenaline and rage that the giant barely had time to react before Drizzt had lept onto its chest and had stabbed it with both blades. The giant howled in pain, and crushed it's arms to it's chest, hoping to turn the drow into a sort of jelly, but Drizzt merely tore his blades from the frost giant's chest and clambered his way higher, until he had slipped onto the the giant's shoulders and driven his scimitars deep into both of the giant's eyes.  
  
The body tipped backward. Drizzt leaped off of it before it hit the ground with a thunderous crash and had crushed several more of its own bandit friends.  
  
Drizzt landed in the midst of a score of orcs and humans, scimitars flashing, Icingdeath out in front, guarding the drow's front while Twinkle danced behind, twirling and slicing, forming an impenatrable wall of sharp steel. Nothing could stand in Drizzt's way. In a matter of half a minute, a score lay dead around him and he showed no signs of slowing again.  
  
He was the Hunter in full. Swords did not stop him. Arrows did not slow him. Giants fell and ran before him. Wounds he did not feel, nor remorse.  
  
They would die, the Hunter had determined.  
  
They would all die.  
  
***  
  
It was a lost cause, Entreri determined. More orcs had arrived and were swarming over the circle of wagons like they were a mere fence against a flood.  
  
In the midst of spell-casting, the mage had been overwhelmed and struck down. Humans, warriors, fell all around him against the overpowering forces of the orc hords. Deciding that sticking around to the bitter end to be folly and suicide, Entreri turned and broke into a run, leaping up to the top of one of the wagons and halted, horrified.  
  
Orcs swarmed everywhere. It was as if the ground were shifting and moving, moving in from the east. What could bring so many orcs together? What horror had such power? Entreri wondered. Shaking himself out of his stillness, the agile human leaped down from the wagon and struck out in the only safe direction. North.  
  
Away from the road.  
  
Towards the Spine of the World.  
  
Orcs pursued.  
  
***  
  
The general watched the raid with satisfaction. His armies were growing. The frost giants had just joined his alliance, and general was feeling invincible. His plans were proceeding. His armies were pressing north.  
  
Soon, they would be strong enough. Enough to begin the assult.  
  
Enough to conquor.  
  
The general liked the sound of that. Very much, indeed.  
  
***  
  
Every step Bruenor took brought him closer to Catti-brie, closer to the time when he would be forced to acknowledge that he was going to lose his adopted daughter.  
  
The hardy dwarf had faced hundreds of foes, from drow to orcs, goblins, yetis, even Balor. Yet of all his battles, his confrontations, this was shaping up to be the greatest.  
  
He was not sure he could handle the challange.  
  
The cleric pushed open the door to Catti-brie's quarters, where she lay, deep in a coma, on the brink of death. He held the door for his king, and then shut the doors again.  
  
A familiar figure sat watching Catti-brie sadly.  
  
"Regis!" Bruenor nearly shouted.  
  
The halfling looked up, nodded to Bruenor, and then gave him a grim, half- hearted smile.  
  
"I came as soon as I heard," the halfling said.  
  
Bruenor crossed the stone room and laid a hand upon Regis's shoulder.  
  
"I'm bein' glad yer here," the dwarf said, his voice quiet. "I'm not fer bein' alone when she..." he didn't bother finishing the sentence, his throat already constricting in a great sob, making any further communication impossible. And unnecessary.  
  
"I still hold to hope," Regis stated confidently.  
  
Bruenor sat on the edge of the bed, watching his human daughter. He sighed.  
  
"Glad one o' us does, Regis...."  
  
Regis stared at the defeated dwarf in surprise. That was probably the first time Bruenor had called the halfling by his real name and not Rumblebelly, his nickname. It only showed the halfling how depressed Bruenor had become.  
  
Bruenor reached out, hesitating only a moment, his hand hovering close to her skin, then he touched her brow. It was icy cold, as if there were no life in her at all. Her face had taken on a sallow, deadened look. Bruenor closed his eyes as hot tears came. He gritted his teeth, and he pulled the hand touching her still form away, and curled it into a fist shaking with rage, with helplessness, and with sorrow. He pressed that fist into his own hot brow, desperately trying to force the tears back.  
  
He might have well been trying to drive back the sea.  
  
"Don't ye dare go, girl!" he shouted suddenly into the silence. "Don't ye dare be leavin'!"  
  
Her chest rose and fell shallowly.  
  
Ignoring the tears flowing steadily into his beard, fighting uncontrolable and unconscious sobs that shook his powerful form, the noble dwarf put his shaking hands on Catti-brie's gray cheeks. Overcome with grief, he lowered his head closer to her still and peaceful face.  
  
"I don't know where ye are, girl, or where ye be travelin' to," the normally gruff dwarf whispered so that only he and his daughter could hear, "but I know I'm not wantin' te see ye goin'. I'm knowin' tha' fer sure. Tha' elf o' yours, Drizzt, he be needin' ye, girly, he be needin' ye a lot. Come back fer him."  
  
He paused to blink tears out of his eyes.  
  
"But if ye needin' to be goin', then I know ye'll be findin' clear trails afore ye. I know ye'll be findin' rest and peace. If this be goodbye, me daughter, then goodbye te ye, but don't ye go willin'ly! Ye fight, ye hear, girl? Ye fight it te the end!"  
  
He fell silent then and the only sound in the room was the crackle of the torches set into the walls. They all seemed to be holding their breath after Bruenor's words. There was no sound of breathing.  
  
Catti-brie's chest now lay still.  
  
Bruenor stared down at her still form in horror and shock. Everything seemed to be spinning. Somewhere in his mind he registered the sight of the clerics rushing forward, shouting prayers and healings though he didn't seem to be hearing anything. Dimly he registered the horror-stricken stare of Regis. He heard no sound, though he would be told later that he was bellowing at the top of his lungs in a heartrending denial.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden stood among the fallen as the last enemy flopped to the snow. He was covered in blood, his scimitars slick in the stuff. He was running purely on adrenaline then, filled with a deep rage. Following the body down, he struck it again with Twinkle, again with Icingdeath, a feral growl escaping his lips. His vision was beginning to blur and darkness was beginning to cover what he was seeing.  
  
Still his arms pumped the scimitars up and down, slashing into the corpse. He didn't even realize that his growl had become a scream of pure rage, of anguish. His swords fell from his freezing fingers, splashing into the red snow. He didn't even bother to retrieve them to continue, simply siezed the corpse about the neck and began strangling it, releasing his anger, his rage. He didn't even stop when the neck snapped.  
  
The Hunter fell away then, and suddenly Drizzt returned to himself and found himself upon his knees, twin scimitars fallen away to the red snow, strangling a dead and mutilated corpse. He released it, startled, and fell back, off of the body, landing prone in the snow, no energy left, staring up at the blue sky. He remembered....  
  
And he heard a familiar voice.  
  
"Drizzt...." it whispered, as if carried by the wind, barely audible. "Drizzt..."  
  
He smiled weakly.  
  
"Catti-brie...." he whispered. The cold seemed to gently drift away. Drizzt was suddenly warm, though nothing in his surroundings had changed.  
  
She was standing over him then, smiling. He grinned up at her.  
  
"What's this?" She asked slyly, a grin of mischief playing upon her face. "Drizzt Do'Urden asleep on the job?"  
  
"Hardly," he retorted. "I was just resting."  
  
She shrugged, still grinning.  
  
"Sleeping or resting, don't matter. It's all the same if there be someone with a knife at yer throat!"  
  
And with a laugh, she leaped upon him, stradling him, her knife at his throat. "What be your plan now, elf?" she cried.  
  
"My plan?" he said as he stared into her eyes. She suddenly blushed red at her actions, conscious of their proximity. He slowly reached up and gently pushed the knife from his throat. It fell to the ground beside them. Their faces were inches upart. "My plan involves this...."  
  
He slowly lifted his head until their lips touched, gently, tenderly. It wasn't much of a kiss in terms of pressure or wild passion, but it was full of it's own passion, a tender fire. His hand came up to caress her cheek, so soft and warm. They parted, but only a few inches.  
  
"Drizzt?"  
  
He looked at her.  
  
"I think I love you...." she whispered.  
  
He smiled.  
  
"And I you."  
  
Their lips came together again, this time with more passion. The campfire burned low in the absence of their tending.  
  
Catti-brie had fallen asleep in his strong arms. And then he heard the crack of a whip and a scream of pain, faint on the wind. Gently he extracted himself from her embrace, dressed quickly and headed into the dawn. He left her asleep and unguarded as he departed from the circular alcove. He had not known that she would soon be ambushed by yetis.  
  
He broke free from the memory, so full of happiness and pain. The bite of the icewind staggered him, and his wounds returned to their pain.  
  
He was free of the memory, and yet her voice came again to him, as if from upon the winds and at the same time hearing it inside of his skull.  
  
"I love you...be strong...."  
  
Then it too was gone, whisked by on the winds, gradually growing fainter until it had faded completely.  
  
"Catti-brie," Drizzt tried to shout, "don't go!"  
  
He staggered to his knees, scrabbling for his scimitars, sheathed them, and pulled himself to his feet, employing the side of the rise to do so. The voice had sounded like it had been traveling south. He crawled up the rise with what strength he had been able to muster. He began crawling after the sound of Catti-brie's voice on his hands and knees, then forced himself to his feet, drawing energy from his deep reservoir of determination and stubborness and staggered through the snow, pursuing the voice of his love, refusing to stop, refusing to stumble and fall, refusing to succumb to his wounds, refusing to lay down and die.  
  
He staggered onward to the south.  
  
Towards the Spine of the World.  
  
Towards the last revelation.  
  
Towards the final duel. 


	4. Chapter 4: Of Dragons, Dungeons, and Rev...

Chapter Four: Of Dragons, Dungeons, and Revelations  
  
I cannot feel my fingers, or my toes. The snow grows deeper around me as I stagger on. I hear the disembodied voice of Catti-brie on the winds of the dale, lurking just on the edge of my hearing, leading me on.  
  
I fear that this is possible because she has at last succumbed to her wounds and has passed from this place, nothing left but the echo of her spirit upon the winds of her home, where she was raised, lived, fought, and now died. It is not a fitting end. She should still be alive. Her death was not the death I know she would have wanted, fighting beside her friends to the last breath. It was an accident, a quirk of fate, or perhaps the whim of a cruel god.  
  
I follow now because there is a hole in my heart. I cannot let her go. I love her. I determined once that my home was with Catti-brie, wherever that would lead. I remain true to that self-examination. I have entered the plane of the Abyss with her, I have fought beside her, and I have known her as my love, though only for a short time. There is still a bond between us. I feel it connecting us beyond the grave, through the planes, a thin, and likely unstable, tether.  
  
My home is with her, wherever that will lead. And so I pursue this, her voice upon the wind, be that it leads to death, to torture, or to redemption. It matters not. I will be with her and that is all I will ever need.  
  
It could be that this connection, this tether, is nothing more than my own guilt for allowing such a fate to befall her, or it could be the connection between lovers true. I never had a chance to apologize, to say I'm sorry, to say goodbye. And that could also be why there is this connection.  
  
My life was and is a lie. This changes nothing. The fault of her death was my own. The many dangers and great foes we as companions, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, Bruenor, Regis, and I, faced are all my fault. Some may think I exaggerate, but I know the truth. For it was because of me that Regis and Catti-brie were endangered by Artemis Entreri. It was because of me that Errtu tortured Wulfgar for six years in the Abyss and caused his pain. It was because of me that my sister and later the Matron Mother Baenre came to Mithril Hall and endangered Bruenor and caused the deaths of many good dwarves.  
  
All of those are burdens I must carry with me forever. All of those burdens increase their weight with every step I take through the knee-deep snow.  
  
I hope for the black of death. Perhaps that will give me some peace. And perhaps not. Either way, it matters little.  
  
Slowly I freeze, here in the wild.  
  
Slowly the wind looses its bite and the snow its cold.  
  
Soon now, soon...  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
***  
  
The clerics worked over her feverishly, but they knew it was futile. Her breathing had stopped, her pulse had faded; the warmth of her body as well. Her eyes stared blankly up in death sightless to this world.  
  
Finally, as if on cue, their prayers of healing dwindled out. One of them sighed and turned to Bruenor, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his daughter's cold hand gripped tightly in his, his eyes locked on hers in shock and unbelief, simply staring down, hardly breathing and not moving at all.  
  
"Me king..." started the Cleric quietly, reverently.  
  
The revery broken, Bruenor turned to stare at the cleric with unseeing eyes, still focused on images of his daughter.  
  
"Me king...her...her spirit be gone," said the Cleric gently.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden stumbled and fell to the snow, his whole torso plunging into a deep drift. Suddenly the cold that his face had been experiencing faded to nothing and he lost the feeling of anything except terrifyingly, horrifyingly, impossible, numbness.  
  
He felt the strength he had been using to continue on suddenly depart from his body and he could not summon the strength to lift his head. He had not even the strength to shiver.  
  
"Get up...." whispered a voice, calling, persistant. "It is not far now...."  
  
Then, suddenly all was warm, and he felt life in him again, as he felt her touch him, a phantom hand not seen only felt caressing his face.  
  
"It is not yet your time...." Catti-brie whispered. Then he felt her lips upon his and he felt the connection tying them together as they shared each other's energy and will power.  
  
Drizzt found himself standing, each leg, surprisingly, ignoring the stiff of the cold and slowly shuffling forward, he started again. He was only a few hundred yards from the first upward slope of the Spine of the World Mountains.  
  
He staggered on, the wind blasting against the rise of the mountains, snow obscuring his vision. He reached the rising rocks and slumped against them, staggering on, using the rocks as a support without which he likely would have fallen and not risen again.  
  
And then, as he moved through the blizzard, the rock support suddenly vanished and Drizzt tumbled sideways into the mouth of a large cave there. A campfire blazed within.  
  
Desperate for warmth, Drizzt crawled into the cave towards the flames. He slumped down and rolling onto his back just before he reached the fire, he felt the warmth against his skin.  
  
***  
  
Tomar Aldorin crept along the darkened depths of the cave, his slender knife drawn and ready. He had gone back to the back of the cave to check for dangers, and had discovered that it extended back much farther than he had thought at first. It continued on back until it became a small corridor that ran off sharply to the left and down, down, down, to a ledge that dropped off suddenly into a deep black that the light of his torch could not penetrate.  
  
He stepped forward cautiously, leaning forward to peer intently over the edge, trying to judge how deep it might descend. He squinted into the gloom and shook his head. It could be less than a ten-foot drop for all he knew.  
  
Then he heard a sound, far off and faint, from the original cave. His keen ears picked up the sound of footsteps echoing off the floor and walls.  
  
He turned and made to move back up the tunnel, but dislodged a fair-sized rock, which rolled down to the lip of the ledge and tumbled off. He paused, holding his breath, listening for the tell-tale clatter.  
  
He heard multiple voices from above, well, one voice talking and responding to someone else. Distracted, he moved away from the drop-off and returned back up the tunnel, heading for the noise.  
  
He clutched at the scabs on his forearms from that blasted drow whip. He staggered and grasped the ruby hanging about his neck and focused its healing energies on the wounds. For some reason, they hadn't been healing well.  
  
***  
  
BurningIce had just closed its eyes in peaceful slumber when the resounding echo of rock upon rock echoed into the cavern of the worm.  
  
The black, beaded eyes slipped open again and the great head rose slightly, cocked to the side, listening for more telltale sounds.  
  
The dragon's heart lifted with a secret hope.  
  
Perhaps some challenger had at last come again, for the first time in more than a century.  
  
***  
  
After being set free by Do'Urden off the road, Tomar had traveled through the wilds until being found by a group of orcs. But they had not, strangely enough, killed him. They had taken him captive and delivered him into the hands of their leader, the mysterious general. The general had not been an orc. At least, that is what Tomar assumed. He had never seen the general's face, or in fact, any skin at all, for the general had worn armor over every inch of his body, and had also worn a skull-shaped helm which obscured his features from view.  
  
The general had given him men and the magical ruby. He led his men back into the Dale to ravage the caravan lines. But they had found Do'Urden again! And the drow had killed them all. Tomar had escaped long before the drow could have found him and was now hiding in this cave at the base of the Spine of the World.  
  
He did not wish to return to tell the general that his entire force of forty could not bring down one warrior, drow or not. The very idea was terrifying. The general would have his head (and his bowels and his arms and his legs and his fingers and his toes, and pretty much everything else) cut off. If only Tomar could get his hands on that drow elf! If only he could have revenge!  
  
As he moved closer to the front of the cave, he saw the still form of Drizzt Do'Urden, lying alone and helpless by his fire. And Tomar Aldoril grinned widely. The gods worked fast.  
  
Silently, he slipped out his dagger and moved towards the prone, ebony- skinned ranger.  
  
***  
  
The icewind howled, bitingly cold and constantly blowing high atop the southern-most mountain in the Spine of the World. A powerful hand gripped a ledge high up on the mountain side.  
  
Artemis Entreri pulled himself up onto the ledge, wind whistling around him, whipping the long strands of his hair into his eyes. Brushing it aside, he drew his sword, scrambled away from the edge and waited in a crouch, for the following orcs. They had pursued him into the Spine of the World, had followed him up the mountain side, and had even closed in on the agile and strong human.  
  
When the orc hand grabbed for a handhold on the ledge, Entreri waited, sword hovering by his head. The orc hauled its head and shoulders above the level of the ledge, and found a sword descending. And then its head was gone, tumbling away down the mountain face in a flash of red and ash from Charon's Claw. Entreri kicked out at the torso and sent it spinning down out of sight. He nodded in satisfaction as he heard the resulting screams, knowing that at least some other orcs had followed the body of the first back down the mountain side.  
  
Then he turned, sheathed Charon's Claw and leaped up, fingers and boots scrabbling for holds. Finding some, Entreri hauled himself the next twenty or so feet to the top of the mountain. Then he stood tall upon the wind- blown rocks and surveyed the Spine of the World.  
  
It was magnificent, or would have been, had he not been followed by the orcs.  
  
***  
  
Tomar raised his dagger above him, preparing to strike. He closed rapidly, boots scuffing softly on the stone floor.  
  
Drizzt's eyes snapped open and focused immediately upon Tomar, though he was far too weak to do anything else.  
  
Grinning from ear to ear, Tomar paused, seeing the helplessness of the drow.  
  
"Well, drow. We just keep running into each other," he sneered, closing in, circling the fire and prone drow.  
  
"Lucky. . . me," Drizzt managed to spit out.  
  
"No, it would probably be closer along the lines of unlucky you, drow. I'll not suffer you to escape again."  
  
And with that, Tomar struck, his dagger a blur.  
  
***  
  
Entreri turned, and instantly drew Charon's Claw and his jeweled dagger, bringing his sword up horizontally to deflect away a strike, then brought his dagger in close to shoot out and stab the orc in the belly. Or would have had the orc not knocked it away. Entreri blinked in surprise for a split second.  
  
The orc brought its large sword in a straight thrust towards Entreri, who only knocked it away, lining a scratch along his right arm from it.  
  
Perhaps he was merely getting tired.  
  
He clashed Charon's Claw against the orc's sword, lifting the orc blade up and over their heads and back down the other side to drive it into the dirt, breaking the orc's grip on its weapon. Entreri kicked out, feeling the leg bend the wrong way at the knee, hearing the primal roar of pain, then drove his dagger deep.  
  
Ripping the dagger from its belly, he placed a well-aimed kick squarely in the orc's chest, driving it back to the edge of the cliff. It tried to remain standing, but lost its balance with its leg broken, and toppled backward into its climbing companion. They both fell free down, down, down.  
  
Wiping his blades, Entreri slid them into their sheaths again, and carefully picked a path down further into the Spine of the World.  
  
***  
  
The dagger plunged down through the air towards Drizzt. And then it suddenly halted as Tomar's eyes widened. He shuddered as the spirit attacked him. He fell back screaming in pain as Catti-brie assaulted his life force again and again.  
  
It was pain, pain everywhere. Red danced before his eyes. His heart was as in a vice! He clutched and scrabbled at his chest, desperate to relieve the pain, the burning, tearing agony! She assaulted him the only place she could find weakness. The ruby. She entered it and reversed its healing process.  
  
The wounds on his arms from the drow whip burst open, blood spraying the floor of the cave. Clutching at the wounds desperately, black eating at his vision, he suddenly toppled forward to the ground and lay still.  
  
The chain around the ruby snapped and it fell beside Drizzt's hand. Slowly, Drizzt reached out and curled his fingers around it.  
  
The internal warmth returned, and he knew Catti-brie was touching him again.  
  
"Always remember Drizzt..." the beautiful voice whispered. "I love you."  
  
"Don't go," mumbled Drizzt, fast falling asleep. "Please...."  
  
"I must..." came the response, beginning to fade. "My time runs short..."  
  
"No..."  
  
"Goodbye Drizzt Do'Urden....I love you..."  
  
Drizzt was now more than half asleep.  
  
"I....love...." he tried to say and he passed into darkness once again.  
  
***  
  
"No!" Bruenor shouted, coming seemingly alive, and leaped off the bed, slugging the offending cleric in the face, laying him low. "No!"  
  
In a blinding rage, he drew his axe and drove it into the ground beside the cleric, tears running down his face and into his beard, then turned and grabbed the lifeless body of Catti-brie by the shoulders and shook her prone form.  
  
"Ye get back here!" he bellowed in despair. "T'ain't yer time!"  
  
Clerics rushed forward and grabbed the grieving dwarf by the arms, forced to bodily drag him off of the body.  
  
"Get off me!" he shouted, shaking them off and twisting around, trying to get a clean shot for a punch. He smashed his fist into the wall instead as the one he had been aiming for ducked out of the way. He seemed not to feel it, or at least not to care. For he had heard something strange. They all had.  
  
They turned to stare at the bed in shock and surprise.  
  
Catti-brie inhaled.  
  
It was shallow, but it was breathing just the same.  
  
***  
  
BurningIce paused for a long moment in its lair, ears craning to determine if an intruder had indeed come. Perhaps a misguided adventurer? A barbarian hero, perhaps? A worthy challenger? The dragon had had few of those in its long and evil lifetime.  
  
After a full minute of silent listening, the dragon lost interest, gave a great yawn which spouted frost-blue pure cold, and slumped back down on its mound of treasure, laying its head to rest comfortably against the millions of gold coins.  
  
Soon it slumbered once again.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt slept the rest of the day, missing the glorious sunset in the west over the Trackless Sea, missing the end of the snowfall, though gray clouds promised more soon to come. The drow slept, oblivious to the movements of Artemis Entreri as the assassin traversed the Spine of the World, the determination of Fate closing in.  
  
Drizzt slept, as the hours slipped by.  
  
As the sun disappeared below the horizon, Drizzt Do'Urden of House Daermon N'a'shezbaernon awoke, finding himself refreshed and his wounds surprisingly on the mend.  
  
He opened his eyes and slowly sat up, groaning from the protesting muscles which were stiff from where he had been lying on the stone cold floor. He slowly eased himself to his feet, and felt something warm and hard slide from his fingers to clatter to the stones. He looked to the ground and his eyes lighted on the healing ruby. He retrieved it and held it up. He regarded it. It had clearly saved him and was a rather magical item. Thinking it to be of possible future use he slipped it into the folds of his tunic, so that it pressed against his skin.  
  
He quickly reached into his pouch and pulled out the figurine of his beloved panther. He realized that Guenhwyvar could not be killed on the material plane, but she could be severely injured. He paused, questioning whether he should call the cat to him so soon after injury, but deciding that he would rather know of her condition, he set the statue down and whispered, "Guenhwyvar, come to me."  
  
The familiar gray mist formed around it and became cat-shaped. Then Guenhwyvar appeared. She walked with a slight limp and probably had other internal injuries, but she showed no signs of extreme pain. He walked over to her and scratched her behind the ears. She growled happily enough.  
  
"I was worried about you, Guen," Drizzt whispered to the cat. She looked at him with an expression that seemed to rather express that he worry about himself.  
  
He grinned at her and then soon after dismissed her back to her own plane where she would continue to heal.  
  
He then noticed the still form of Tomar and he remembered the previous events in the cave. He smiled as he looked upon the body, for the spirit of Catti-brie, as her last act, had defended him. He took comfort in that at the same time experiencing a pang of sadness. His chest tightened, and in order to drown the pain, Drizzt turned and made his way back farther into the cave, hoping to find something to occupy his attention.  
  
***  
  
A finger twitched.  
  
Slowly, Tomar Aldorin blinked open his eyes.  
  
His mind was as in a fog, and he simply lay, blinking stupidly in the haze of his thoughts, searching for some recollection of what had occurred.  
  
He rolled slowly onto his back and clambered to his feet, swaying unsteadily, feeling light-headed. Rubbing his temples, he glanced around, noting the smoldering ruin that was his fire and the absence of Do'Urden. He turned completely around, fumbling for his slender dagger.  
  
He noted the disturbances in the dust on the cave floor where the drow had lain, and then the scuff marks of boots leading deeper into the caves.  
  
Tomar took a step in pursuit, then paused, feeling something was out of place. He reached up and felt for his ruby. It was gone. Taken by the thieving drow, likely. Tomar snarled in rage.  
  
He was going to kill that drow, if it was the last thing he did.  
  
He didn't even think that it probably would be.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt moved easily through the darkness, marveling at the energy and strength he had regained so quickly. It was the ruby, he knew, feeling it working its magic upon him as he strode amid the stalagmites and stalactites.  
  
Soon he found the cave narrowing into a tunnel of sorts that narrowed and sloped downwards at a slight angle. He followed it.  
  
The tunnel ended a few minutes later and he emerged on the edge of a ledge which dropped down suddenly. With his superior infrared vision, Drizzt clearly saw that the drop off was not completely vertical, but sloped at a steep angle down and out of sight in a sort of extremely rough slide.  
  
His keen ears picked up the sound of breathing, a long way off, from below.  
  
He was just contemplating whether he wanted to go investigate when something slammed into him from behind. The drow staggered, the air knocked from his chest, and he fell to the hard stone, his attacker atop him. He bucked with all of his strength, tossing his opponent off of him, then rolled. Just in time, it turned out, as a dagger drove into the ground where his head had been only a split second before. He grabbed the arm and bodily flipped Tomar over his head, then rolled to his feet, angrily kicking at Tomar as he scrambled to his knees.  
  
Tomar swatted the kick away, which Drizzt hadn't really intended to connect, and pushed himself to his feet.  
  
They squared off, glaring at each other.  
  
Drizzt slid his scimitars out of their sheaths slowly, menacingly, making sure that there was a clear "shing!" as he drew them.  
  
They began to circle each other until Drizzt had his back to the drop behind them. Tomar struck, dagger glinting as it sliced through the air. Drizzt caught the blade and flipped it up and out of the way, then followed with a slash from Twinkle. Tomar dodged awkwardly, yet still managed to avoid being struck. In the position he was in, Drizzt realized that he was seriously vulnerable, with Twinkle extended straight out and Icingdeath down and by his thigh. Tomar saw the opening and took it, jabbing for Drizzt's ribs with his dagger.  
  
Drizzt, realizing that the human was too close to effectively parry the strike, leaped back out of the way, and was suddenly aware that he was out of room as he landed with his heels over open air. Suddenly unbalanced, Drizzt's arms went out to the sides to steady him, and Tomar attacked, slamming into the drow, dagger eager to stab.  
  
Drizzt over balanced, grabbing onto Tomar's hair with one hand as he tipped backward, and they plunged unseeing into the darkness.  
  
***  
  
Just after the moon had passed the midpoint in its nightly journey, Catti- brie awoke from the coma. The clerics praised their dwarven deities, and Bruenor wept openly, muttering "me girl" fervently between sobs.  
  
She was still very weak, and the internal bleeding continued. Soon after, she fell asleep, and slipped once again into the depths of the coma, the darkness, the hardest battle she had ever fought.  
  
Some hours passed and her skin began to again take on a deadened look before Pwent Battlerager burst in looking agitated, hopping about in frustration.  
  
"There be an elf to see ye me king," he said.  
  
"Bah," snorted Bruenor softly, shaking his head. "I be seein' no one this night. Me girl's passing before me eyes and I'll not waste words with the likes of-"  
  
"Lady Alustriel, perhaps?" asked a beautiful and amused voice from behind the gruff dwarf.  
  
Bruenor spun around to see the frail and beautiful, and softly glowing, Lady Alustriel, leader of Silverymoon, a great city to the south.  
  
"Me lady!" stuttered Bruenor embarrassedly.  
  
"It is all right, Bruenor Battlehammer. We have more concerns this night than your manners, especially under such circumstances."  
  
"But-but, how could ye have gotten....I mean, how did ye....." the flustered dwarf blurted out.  
  
Alustriel smiled, an expression destined to warm the heart of even the surliest of dwarves.  
  
But then the smile was gone, and Alustriel wore a very grave look.  
  
"I have had a vision, my dwarven friend." Her voice was deadly serious. "A glimpse of what is to come."  
  
She paused for a long moment, as if debating about how much to say, then glanced at Catti-brie.  
  
"But even with the direness of what I have seen, there is yet hope," she said, never looking away from the pale form of Catti-brie. She turned her gaze back to Bruenor.  
  
"Then ye've come for me Catti-brie?" Bruenor's face brightened considerably with that hope.  
  
"I have. Wulfgar travels north as well. I sent a messenger to him. And I have brought a potion."  
  
Bruenor leaped off of the bed to his feet with happiness.  
  
"An' it'll be healin' me Catti-brie?"  
  
"That is the hope. It is not clear how far our friend Catti-brie has slipped from the living, but there is yet hope that she will live."  
  
While she spoke, Alustriel moved closer to the prone woman, knelt by the large (by dwarven standards) bed, and produced a small glass vial from the depths of her magnificent, pure white dress.  
  
She breathed a word quietly at the top of the vial, and the potent liquid began to brighten as if a miniature star were contained within.  
  
Leaning in toward Catti-brie's face, Alustriel gently lifted the vial to the pale lips of the prone woman and poured the contents down her throat.  
  
The beautiful elf turned to Bruenor again and smiled.  
  
"Now we must hope," Alustriel said.  
  
Somewhere in the background Pwent Battlerager muttered "grow yerself a beard, girly elf."  
  
***  
  
Drizzt slammed into the stone ground, the air in his lungs blasted out in an explosive gasp as the two struggling adversaries began to slide down the rough rock, Tomar above Drizzt, trying to bring his dagger to bear, Drizzt latching upon the wrist and refusing to release it.  
  
Drizzt was on his back, sliding down the chute headfirst, unable to see where he was going. Unable to escape the iron grip of the enraged drow, Tomar began punching and striking Drizzt with his free and empty hand.  
  
Drizzt kicked out, trying to throw Tomar from him. Tomar tipped to the side, still held fast by the drow, and they began to roll, one over the other, as they slid and fought.  
  
The world spun around Drizzt dizzily as he tried to focus on the human attempting to kill him. Somehow he found that difficult what with his back slamming into the ground every second or so as their uncontrollable roll continued, down into the gloom.  
  
After several minutes of rolling in the darkness, the chute evened out into a large cavern. As they neared, Drizzt twisted the knife in Tomar's grasp, and they hit the level area with the force of a giant's blow, the air knocked out of both of their lungs. Tomar landed with his back to the ground, Drizzt atop him, the weight of the drow impaling Tomar with his own knife.  
  
His momentum continuing, Drizzt rolled by the human, who gasped in agony and pain as the ice-cold blade slipped into his belly.  
  
Drizzt rolled to his feet in the dark, seeing easily, his eyes two angry lavender pricks in the darkness.  
  
Tomar, hands shaking weakly, slowly pulled the dagger from his belly, hearing it fall clattering away to the stone. He slowly rolled to his stomach and staggered to his feet weakly, hands pressing against the tide of blood soiling his tunic.  
  
Drizzt stared hard at the thief.  
  
"Do you remember what I told you that day on the road, when I rescued you from the wizard?" Drizzt asked, his voice rasping coldly in the quiet gloom.  
  
Tomar looked at him in horror, a thin trail of blood flowing from the corner of his mouth, his eyes adjusting to the gloom to see Drizzt. He did remember. The panther!  
  
Drizzt slowly lifted his arm, holding the panther figurine, a cold and dangerous look in his eyes. "I keep my promises, thief," he breathed.  
  
"No!" shouted Tomar and turned, staggering, limping into the gloom.  
  
"Guenhwyvar," said Drizzt, calling the panther.  
  
The mist appeared and soon the cat was before him.  
  
There was a long silence in the darkness as Drizzt stared after the receding back of the thief.  
  
Then he pointed after the fleeing fool.  
  
"Kill," he snarled.  
  
***  
  
Tomar Aldorin staggered into the gloom, running blindly. There was a sharp and constant burning pain in his belly as if it were afire. He clutched at the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. He glanced behind, imaging that horrible panther on his heels, maw slathering.  
  
The way was empty behind him, but that hardly comforted the terrified human. Likely it was stalking him!  
  
And then he tripped, falling forward, into nothing. He felt himself sliding, down, down.  
  
He emerged into golden light as he rolled headlong into a pile of coins, scattering them across the stones, tinkling and bouncing. He was barely conscious, darkness eating at his vision. He wasn't feeling much anymore.  
  
"Greetings, challenger!" came a terrible voice. "You die."  
  
Tomar glanced up and found a great reptilian head grinning evilly at him.  
  
The maw opened and pure bluish cold issued forth faster than Tomar could have thought possible.  
  
He didn't even have time to scream.  
  
***  
  
Guenhwyvar continued to look at Drizzt.  
  
"Get after him!" the angry drow bellowed.  
  
Guen did not move, just looked at Drizzt with an expression bordering on disappointment.  
  
"Kill him!" screamed Drizzt in sheer anger. He was trembling with a rage greater than he knew was in him. His blood boiled. Why did she not obey him?  
  
"I command you to kill that man!" shouted Drizzt, shivering in almost uncontrollable anger, his purple eyes glittering in lavender rage, pointing in the general direction Tomar had disappeared in.  
  
Guenhwyvar pointedly ignored him and sat on her haunches, never breaking eye contact with Drizzt. Drizzt lost control and moved forward, hand raised to strike. She flinched back, turning her face away, ears flat, squinting.  
  
Drizzt paused, hand in midair, frozen in shock at what he had almost done. Guen slowly turned her head back and gave Drizzt a piercingly wounded stare.  
  
His mind rocketed back to Masoj and how he had seen the evil drow wizard treat Guenhwyvar. He remembered every single time when Guenhwyvar had stood by him alone, every time she had unquestioningly followed him into a dangerous situation, every time she had saved his life.  
  
And he found himself on his knees, arms about her powerful neck, head next to hers.  
  
"I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling perfectly miserable. He felt tears coming, but the moment was broken with the echoing sound of a great and terrible roar of triumph.  
  
Startled, Drizzt rolled to the right, scimitars appearing in his hands as if willed there.  
  
He glanced at Guenhwyvar, who was growling, her fangs bared. There was an almost eager light in Drizzt's eyes.  
  
Silently, the pair moved off in the direction of the sound.  
  
***  
  
BurningIce found itself pleased with the kill, yet disappointed with the swiftness of the conflict. It had waited for so long, so many centuries, and now its only conflict in two hundred years was over. Finished. Ended. The dragon worried that it might not even see another challenger again. It mused that perhaps it should have toyed with its prey a bit longer before finishing it.  
  
It was very disappointed indeed.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt and Guenhwyvar crept along the cavernous tunnels. Soon they came upon a large gaping hole in the floor of the tunnel. Creeping nearer, Drizzt moved to his hands and knees, carefully crawling forward to peer down into the hole.  
  
There was a pile of coins and treasure stacked so high that Drizzt could almost reach down and touch it. He leaned farther down, sticking his head through the hole and scanning the huge cavern. It was filled-packed-with countless treasure. Huge mounds, mountains even, of the stuff lay scattered everywhere.  
  
He barely had time to react. He yanked his head out of the hole, and rolled back away from the lip, just as a gout of pure cold blasted through the hole and froze the ceiling solid.  
  
"You are quick, little thief," said a terrible voice from below, a voice with a slight hint of admiration.  
  
"Dragon..." whispered Drizzt in despair. He had faced a Frost Dragon before, but then he had been assisting Wulfgar, and they had tied in slaying the beast. Later, in the depths of Mithril Hall, the companions had faced another dragon, a dragon that had almost taken Bruenor from them, that had nearly killed them all. Drizzt had no interest in facing one again, especially alone.  
  
"I have vanquished your friend," the taunting voice of the dragon echoed up at him. Drizzt found he hardly cared.  
  
Suddenly, he realized that if he wished to end his life this would be the perfect way to go. He felt his emotions fade, all except for rage, the most valuable and dangerous emotion of all. He fell into the Hunter.  
  
Then, nodding to Guenhwyvar, who understood her master's intentions perfectly, he watched her move into position in front of him.  
  
Then the panther let out a horrible roar and dove out of sight, through the hole and slid down the mountain of treasure, Drizzt at her tail, sliding down the other side of the mound.  
  
***  
  
Entreri had traveled for many hours up and down mountains, still running from the many orcs that had pursued him. He thought he had lost them, though they could possibly be watching him at that moment. He had just reached the highest peak in the Spine of the World and set a fire some way below the absolute peak, on a flat stretch of ground. The day was unusually warm for the start of winter in the Dale. Not quite cold enough for snow.  
  
He glanced into the sky and found dark clouds sliding over to obscure the moon, and a few moments later felt the telltale droplets of rain. He quickly threw a cloak over his head.  
  
It was going to be a long night.  
  
***  
  
The cat charged down the slope and attacked the surprised dragon, leaping at it, claws raking the hard scales and jaws trying to find something to bite.  
  
Drizzt slid down the other side of the treasure mound, Guenhwyvar's attack perfectly distracting the dragon long enough for Drizzt to enter the cave unnoticed. He slid down it upright, remaining upon his feet, balance perfect, as if he were skiing.  
  
Ignoring the sounds of battle for the moment, Drizzt reached the bottom of the mound of treasure and moved around the base in the quiet shadows.  
  
He tripped over something and fell to the ground. He was in plain sight of the dragon, though it was busy with Guenhwyvar and did not look his direction. He snatched whatever it was that tripped him up and discovered a magnificent crossbow with a blood-red bolt and a SEPARATE purple-colored jewel of some sort. Grinning, he took up the crossbow, pocketed the jewel and rolled to his feet, sprinting up the side of a large mound of treasure. Peaking the crest, he lifted the crossbow and pulled the trigger.  
  
The bolt exploded fiery-red in the shadows and blasted towards the dragon like a rocket, trailing a line of glowing ash. Unused to the bow, Drizzt's shot was just off the mark and ricoched off of the hard scales of the behemoth's back and shot into the roof of the cavern high above.  
  
There was a flash of bright light and darkness became like day for a split second before it faded, amid the sound of buckling rock from above.  
  
***  
  
Entreri gasped as a section of ground ten feet in diameter suddenly glowed red-hot and exploded upward into the air, pelting him with rocks and debris, throwing him backwards to roll onto his stomach. He blinked dirt out of his eyes, still seeing the afterglow of the fire in his vision.  
  
What in the layers of the Abyss was that?  
  
***  
  
Drizzt looked at the crossbow. Another bolt simply materialized, ready to be loosed.  
  
Drizzt fired the crossbow again, this time sailing true and punching a hole in the armored scales of the dragon, a direct broadside which threw the beast's balance off.  
  
Then Drizzt drew his scimitars with a snarl of rage, and charged down the incline of the mound straight for the dragon. Normally, he wouldn't have done something so rashly. But there was a part of him that wanted to die, to fall into the blissful sleep of death. He ignored the Hunter's urge to kill the beast, and simply charged.  
  
It blasted at Guenhwyvar with its icy breath (the cat nimbly leaped out of its path), and turned to the charging Drizzt. It opened its huge maw.  
  
Drizzt never faltered. He knew instinctively that this was the end. He embraced it, hefting his scimitars in defiance and shouted all of his rage, his hate, his anguish at the beast before him. If emotions could become weapons, BurningIce would have been a greasy smear on the side of the cave.  
  
It casually blasted the drow full-force with its deadly ice breath.  
  
There was no escape.  
  
***  
  
Entreri staggered to his feet, dust and rubble falling away from his clothes. Confusion etched on his face, he fell to his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the smoldering hole and stared down into the cavern, instantly assessing the battle below.  
  
His eyes lighted on a familiar drow.  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden.  
  
His eyes narrowed.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt felt a surge of power from his pocket. The purple jewel he had taken had begun to pulse and throb within his tunic. He felt its power all around him.  
  
Drizzt gasped as he felt the energy surge through every inch of his body, a warm flood traveling even to his extremities.  
  
The ice breath struck him and....and....and parted as if blasted to the sides like water around a rock. It flowed around him. He could see it moving around him, over his skin, but he felt nothing. In fact, he kept running.  
  
Recovering from his surprise swiftly, Drizzt saw Guenhwyvar charging again at the dragon, saw the dragon turn away from him, thinking him downed, saw Guenhwyvar leap high into the air, straight for the beast's throat.  
  
He was utterly helpless to what was going to happen. So he charged past the feet of the dragon and dove underneath it, seeking the soft underbelly.  
  
***  
  
Guenhwyvar snarled in rage as the huge mouth, fangs glistening, snapped closed around the panther. She felt the burn of pain as she was impaled by teeth the size of scimitars. She howled in pain, feeling herself grow indistinct, knowing that she was returning to the Astral plane. She howled again, desiring to aid her drow friend. The intelligent panther remembered the Underdark, remembered that moment when Drizzt had been caught in the sticky webs of a cive fisher and about to be killed. She had resisted the magic of the statue then. Drizzt needed her help again. And so she fought the call of the magic with all of her heart and all of her soul.  
  
Stubbornly she fought the call, feeling herself return in full force to the material plane, feeling the driving, burning pain, though she ignored it. She tore herself off of the teeth and half crawled half fell deeper into the mouth of the dragon.  
  
It swallowed, the tongue raising and forcing her down its evil throat. As she disappeared down the gaping maw, Guenhwyvar unsheathed her claws and dug them into the throat, carving great channels as she fell, snarling all the way.  
  
***  
  
The dragon roared in pain, head and neck arcing upward as it did so. Drizzt stabbed with both of his blades, both slipping between scales and into soft flesh. With a growl of rage, Drizzt twisted them.  
  
The dragon reared in agony, roaring again, but this time spewing blood as well.  
  
Glancing down, the dragon saw Drizzt twisting his scimitars in its soft belly. BurningIce swatted Drizzt away, his scimitars sliding free and Drizzt felt himself grasped in powerful talons. Pinned and helpless, Drizzt was lifted close to the dragon's face.  
  
"You were worthy, elf," the dragon stated. Then it flipped Drizzt into the air and opened its sharp mouth.  
  
And it struck.  
  
***  
  
Catti-brie's eyes snapped open. She screamed a single name.  
  
"Drizzt!"  
  
The door to the ante-room where Alustriel and Bruenor had been talking burst open, Bruenor nearly taking it off its hinges as he heard his daughter's voice. He fell upon her, tears obscuring his vision in his happiness, constantly muttering "me girl, me girl," over and over.  
  
Lady Alustriel followed the exuberant dwarf, her face a frown of concern.  
  
Catti-brie was overwhelmed for several moments by the dwarf. Alustriel sat beside Bruenor and put her hand on Catti-brie's shoulder. Catti-brie looked at her weakly, still lying back.  
  
"Where is Drizzt?"  
  
Catti-brie opened her mouth, then closed it again, then finally mustered the strength to speak.  
  
"Spine....of the World."  
  
Lady Alustriel nodded knowingly.  
  
"Destiny is closing in."  
  
She glanced at Bruenor. The teary-eyed dwarf sniffed and raised an eyebrow in question  
  
"What are ye talkin' about?" asked Bruenor.  
  
"I have foreseen this. Events are now unfolding which cannot be changed. The path has been chosen. It must be seen through to the end."  
  
Alustriel looked again at the weak form of Catti-brie.  
  
"Stay with her," she said. "She is yet not well enough to move."  
  
Her voice suddenly turned grave.  
  
"She must not die."  
  
Bruenor nodded.  
  
Alustriel moved forward, knelt down and gripped Bruenor's forearm tightly. She looked grimmly into his eyes.  
  
"She MUST not."  
  
Alustriel stood quickly and moved out of the room, gently closing the doors behind her. She turned and Thibbledwarf Pwent stood behind her.  
  
"Heared me a yell," said the energetic dwarf.  
  
"Catti-brie is awake."  
  
He nodded. She found his stench quite overwhelming even at that distance.  
  
"Do you like battle?" She asked slyly.  
  
"Do fishes like water?" retorted Pwent.  
  
She nodded, smiling. A plan had begun to formulate in her mind.  
  
"Come with me."  
  
***  
  
Drizzt saw the head move towards him in a lighting-fast strike. He didn't think he could cheat fate another time. His arms flailed around him, seeking something, anything, to protect himself from the coming death.  
  
And then he stopped falling. He looked up and found himself locking stares with Artemis Entreri, who had him firmly gripped by the wrist, leaning out over the edge of the hole carved by the wayward crossbow bolt.  
  
The dragon undercompensated, expecting Drizzt to be several feet below his current position. The jaws snapped shut on empty air.  
  
It was the last thing BurningIce ever did.  
  
It was that exact moment that Guenhwyvar ripped apart BurningIce's heart from the inside.  
  
***  
  
Entreri hauled Drizzt out of the cavern and onto the mountain side, into the cold rain. Thunder rumbled and lightning crackled in the air around them, lighting up the night. Black clouds covered the light of the moon.  
  
As soon as his feet were planted firmly on the ground, Drizzt shoved away from Entreri and rolled to his feet, lavender eyes glaring, scimitars gripped firmly in his hands. Twinkle glowed a dim blue.  
  
"I do not believe I have ever seen Drizzt Do'Urden so depressed. Perhaps he has heard that I seek him."  
  
Drizzt scowled.  
  
"You," he growled.  
  
Artemis Entreri raised an eyebrow. "Well met to you too," he said wryly.  
  
He stood on the other side of the smoldering firepit, the dying flames flickering off his face and glowing red eyes, forearms resting lightly on his sword hilt and dagger. He looked perfectly calm.  
  
"Tell me drow, can you ever die?"  
  
"Can you?" snarled Drizzt. The anger within him was building. It wasn't even directed towards Entreri, but at everything that had happened, every hardship that had befallen his companions because he had come to the surface. His banishing of Errtu, which had led to the balor's desire for revenge against him, which had led to his capturing Wulfgar and torturing him for six years, which had led to Aegis-Fang being stolen and sold to a deadly pirate. Drizzt's escaping Menzoberranzan those years ago, which had led to the dishonoring of House Do'Urden and the sacrifice of Drizzt's father to Lloth, the Spider Queen, Goddess of Chaos, which had led to Drizzt's sister coming to Mithril Hall for revenge against him, which had been merely a precursor to Matron Baenre's invasion of Mithril Hall later, costing many lives. He saw Ellifain die. He saw Zaknafein fall into boiling acid.  
  
All of that guilt, and all of that pent up frustration and anger went surging against Artemis Entreri as Drizzt stared at him.  
  
Drizzt was the Hunter again. An intense fire burned in his purple eyes as he bored holes through the face of Entreri.  
  
"Let us finish what we have been trying to for so many years, Drizzt Do'Urden!" said Entreri. He swept his arms about him, indicating their isolation. "Look around you, Do'Urden! No friends, no allies to get in the way this time. Let us finish this. Only one walks away."  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden exploded into motion before Entreri had even finished speaking, leaping over the fire, Twinkle shining with a blinding blue glow.  
  
Upon a mountain top, in the midst of a storm, far in the wild, completely isolated, Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri dueled for the final time.  
  
Next Chapter: "The Darkest Hour, the Final Duel" 


	5. Chapter Five: The Darkest Hour, The Fina...

Chapter Five: The Darkest Hour, the Final Duel  
  
Entreri. The one man in all of Faerun I have no desire to face is, of course, the one that Fate mockingly throws directly into my path.  
  
He is my opposite in this place. He is the one who showed my principles, my morality, to be faulty, to be a lie. He is what I am not. He has held up a mirror to my morals, revealed them for what they are. Less substantial than the mists of the dale, less real than the swords in my hands.  
  
Less than the air over the earth.  
  
They are nothing. The desperate concepts of a mind truly weak.  
  
I look back now and I remember. I remember back to my confrontation with Matron Malice, my mother, back in Menzoberranzan, after she had knowingly, indeed eagerly, given my father Zaknafein to Lolth, the Spider Queen as a sacrifice. She offered me the chance to become Weapons Master of House Do'Urden.  
  
At that time I had seen it as an evil offer intent upon trapping me the same way it had trapped Zaknafein. I saw it as a trick, a way to destroy the moral light in my heart.  
  
And now I look back at it in my present light and I wonder. Should I have accepted? My place is surely among the drow, down in the bowels of the earth, amid the heartless, the hopeless, and the dark world of the Underdark.  
  
I have tried to live upon the surface, but even now, so many years after my first step into the open sky, I am shunned and feared for my heritage, my dark skin.  
  
I am drow.  
  
I know what that means.  
  
Perhaps I should start to live like one.  
  
I shall start with the death of my foe, Artemis Entreri.  
  
He shall surely die.  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
***  
  
The scimitars weaved furiously before the leaping drow, slicing out individual patterns totally unrelated to each other yet also complementing the other, Twinkle spinning out to the left and carving circles through the air while IcingDeath shot straight out, weaving indestructible defenses against any attack.  
  
Entreri was so stunned that he barely reacted for a moment. But he recovered in time to draw his jeweled dagger, his most prized weapon, and his only-recently acquired sword. Its blade glowed bright red as it was yanked from its scabbard and whipped up before Entreri to deflect Twinkle, sending the sword down and to the side as the human's dagger sliced forward to test the defenses. It was clanked away instantly by Icingdeath.  
  
And then Entreri was overwhelmed by a myriad of stunning maneuvers as Drizzt spun and sliced, weaving his blades in an awe-inspiring display of talent as the drow played through his rage. Entreri staggered to keep up, slashing left, and rolling away and back from a horizontal slice by IcingDeath which opened a cut in his leather jerkin across his belly. Fortunately for Entreri, that was all it cut.  
  
The human was forced to retreat backward, parrying slash after cut after lunge, being driven back by the sheer primal ferocity of the attack, desperately trying not to become distracted by the incredible display. Then Drizzt halted the pursuit and simply stood there, scimitars at his sides, his chest heaving, his eyes flaring with purple fire.  
  
Entreri faced off against him, remaining outside of striking distance.  
  
"You skill remains, drow," the human sneered, finding rage building in him as he finally confronted his long-time nemesis at last.  
  
Drizzt gave him a cold glare, and then moved forward again, scimitars flashing like fire with every lightning strike, the drow's lavender eyes blazing with every thunder roll. Entreri was continually pressed back farther and farther.  
  
And then Drizzt began to spin, rotating his feet so that Entreri was always facing a different scimitar weaving his way, Drizzt presenting his left side and Twinkle in an overhead slash that Entreri banged away, then shifted, stepping forward and setting his right side towards the human, Icingdeath sweeping upwards from below, his left foot already following, like a dance.  
  
Entreri found himself gaping at the speed, the flow, the perfect weave of the duel blades against him, Drizzt's constantly spinning scimitars dicing the air before him. It was not just surprise, it was utter awe, utter astonishment at the agility, the speed, the sheer power of the moves, designed perfectly to drive Entreri back.  
  
And then Entreri was out of room, his back coming to rest against the sheer cliff face that rose above him. He knew there was a trail somewhere to the left, but it only led upwards. Not a direction Entreri wished to go, but then, a choice between that and death would surely result in him taking the path.  
  
Drizzt came on, twirling his scimitars before him, a dangerous look in his eyes. Entreri waited until the last possible moment then swept his sword vertically before him in a flash of red that trailed a wall of ash.  
  
Drizzt blinked in surprise as the ash wall appeared before him. His momentum carried him through it easily, it was not meant to deter him, merely distract, and it crumbled around him. His scimitars carved trails through the rock wall where Entreri had been only a second before.  
  
Sensing an attack from the side, Drizzt dropped to the ground as Charon's Claw whistled overhead, slicing a lock of Drizzt's white hair as the blade sailed by. Drizzt slashed out with Icingdeath for Entreri's shins, but the nimble human leaped over the move, hopping back out of range. Then Entreri moved forward, clearly hoping to create an advantage by assaulting the drow while he was down.  
  
But Drizzt was already rolling away and to his feet. He was just bringing his weapons up to bear when Entreri launched a fury of blows designed to overwhelm and confuse an opponent. It would certainly have worked had it been any opponent but Drizzt Do'Urden, mightiest warrior of warriors.  
  
The two began to circle, three, four, even five blows ringing into the night over the din of the thunder every second, weapons a blur of flashes and clangs of metal. Slowly but surely, Entreri began to force Drizzt into the defensive, furiously driving the drow backwards up the narrow path that wound its way to the peak of the mountain.  
  
Had they looked back, they would, in the frequent flashes of lightning lighting up the sky, seen a score of orcs following cautiously, waiting to overwhelm and kill the winner.  
  
***  
  
The wind whipped through Alustriel's hair as she directed the flaming and flying chariot over Icewind Dale.  
  
"Faster!" she cried, her face aglow with pale light, dress damp from the pouring rain, hair trailing out behind her lazily seemingly avoiding the rain, for it was perfectly dry.  
  
Pwent watched her with surprise and more than a little trepidation.  
  
"We approach the Spine of the World!" She shouted at him over a particularly close clash of thunder and a lightning bolt blasted through the air within feet of the chariot. The dwarves crowded into the back of the chariot shifted nervously.  
  
Dimly, the dwarf realized that this girly elf may be crazier than all of his Gutbuster Brigade.  
  
***  
  
The trail leading up the mountain was no more than three feet wide with a solid and smooth rock wall upon one side and a several thousand foot drop, all the way to the bottom of the Spine of the World, on the other.  
  
Drizzt slapped away yet another attack, moving quickly backwards, picking off three more jabs with that red sword and one more from Entreri's dagger. Drizzt kept moving backward, up and up, his swords twirling before him. He had been surprised by the human with that ash wall trick and it had allowed Entreri to press the advantage, sending Drizzt on the defensive. He had not yet caught up.  
  
Then suddenly, lightning flashed so very close to the path, only feet from them. Drizzt and Entreri felt the power of its passing, and it blinded Drizzt for a split second. It was enough. Icingdeath came up with his arm to cover his hurting eyes.  
  
Entreri struck with a slashing blow. Drizzt felt it coming and tried to twist away, but it drew a red line down his leg from hip to knee.  
  
Drizzt cried out and fell to the ground, landing awkwardly, Twinkle bouncing free of his grasp and made a blue arcing line over the cliff and out of sight.  
  
Entreri cried out in triumph and lifted Charon's Claw over his head.  
  
"To the victor!" he shouted and brought the sword down.  
  
Drizzt lifted his leg and caught the descending arm, then lifted his other one and with a roar of pain and absolute rage, kicked Entreri in the groin.  
  
Gasping in agony, Entreri fell to his knees, his dagger sliding out and falling away to follow Drizzt's sword down and out of sight.  
  
Drizzt felt his leg, and blinked in surprise. The wound had already closed! Then he felt the magical ruby working and realized what was happening.  
  
He rolled to his feet and attacked Entreri, who was still on his knees. Entreri pushed away the pain and brought Charon's Claw up, deflecting the strike. He then staggered to his feet and drove Drizzt on.  
  
Entreri, in a deeper rage than he thought possible, pushed his fighting skills to the limit, the surprised Drizzt again on the defensive as Charon's Claw hummed and whirled around him.  
  
***  
  
Alustriel scanned the mountains intently, searching for some sign. She had dreamed a vision and it was coming to pass, piece by piece.  
  
"Look ye there!" shouted Pwent suddenly, pointing.  
  
She turned and looked in the direction the dwarf was pointing a stubby finger. At first, she saw nothing, but then spotted what the smelly dwarf was pointing at. Orcs. At least a score.  
  
Nodding, she turned the chariot about and headed straight for them.  
  
Pwent turned to the few members of the Gutbuster Brigade he could pack into the chariot.  
  
"Orc-bashin' time!" he shouted at them eagerly.  
  
There were fidgets of excitement from the crowd as they readied their weapons. They loved bashin' orcs.  
  
***  
  
Grignag, orc leader, looked around at his troops. They were eager, he could tell. Eager to eliminate the surviving human.  
  
The human was the only survivor of the raid on the caravan. The general had ordered absolute secrecy, no survivors. Grignag had noticed the human escaping and gathered a score of his men and pursued. He would return to the general triumphantly holding the warrior's head and present it to the general.  
  
He knew that the general would be pleased.  
  
***  
  
The two combatants reached the peak of the mountain and found it fairly flat ground in a ten-foot circle. On all sides, the mountain fell away to rocks far, far, far below.  
  
Drizzt spun out to the side now that he was free of the confines of the path, and rolled, skidding to his feet, Icingdeath before him.  
  
Entreri emerged and set his feet, Charon's Claw extended out to guard the front.  
  
"Quite the display, don't you think, drow?" Entreri taunted, feeling a desire to mock Drizzt despite his better efforts and wishes not to.  
  
Drizzt gave an enraged roar and charged forward, Icingdeath weaving and dancing. Lightning lit up the sky all around them. The wind tore at their clothes, whipping and snapping their cloaks, and thunder rolled in the black sky, the rain slapping and spattering hard at them, seeming to aim for the eyes.  
  
Entreri met the attack calmly and slashed Charon's Claw back and forth, to the right and then to the left, above and then below.  
  
Evenly matched, the two warriors vented their fury, swords moving faster than the eye could follow. The lunges and parries were skilled, fast and furious, each blow carrying with it each fighter's own personal demons. Never in all the ages of the past had Faerun seen such a battle, never in all the ages past had there been such a display of fighting prowess and skill. Never would Faerun see its kind again.  
  
***  
  
The chariot swooped low, only a dozen feet above the heads of the orcs, a gout of flame leading it in from the hand of Alustriel. As it rocketed by, Thibbledwarf Pwent Battlerager leaped from the back, his dozen dwarven followers at his heels, like a dozen dwarven bombs delivered express to their enemies.  
  
They landed on the ground, in bushes, and on enemies, spiky armor doing its job well, splattering orcs to the ground. The screams of panicked orcs filled the air.  
  
Pwent landed in a small shrub and quickly got tangled in its branches. Cursing, he jiggled about, the sharp points of his armor quickly reducing the bush to a series of shredded greenery. Rolling to his feet, Pwent charged off, into the thick of the fight.  
  
He loved bashin' orcs.  
  
***  
  
They locked their weapons, each swordsman pressing against the other in an effort to throw his foe to the ground. Drizzt's eyes blazed like twin lavender stars in the night, Entreri's like two red points of light.  
  
Drizzt bellowed in rage, trying to cast off the human, their blades sparking and grating against the other.  
  
Suddenly the rain was gone, the thunder, the clouds, even Entreri was gone and Drizzt was back in Zaknafein's gym during their final duel.  
  
They pressed their swords together, each enraged against the other.  
  
"Child killer!" shouted Zak, goading Drizzt on.  
  
Drizzt felt the rage filling him, rushing through his veins and filling his heart until the point of breaking, the anger, the pain. He was the Hunter.  
  
With the greatest strength Drizzt had ever known, he gave a scream of pure anguish and hurled Zak away from him, lifting the weapon's master from his feet and tossing him away as if he were a rag.  
  
***  
  
Entreri was lifted into the air at the strength of the push and knocked backward five or six feet, sliding to the edge of the ledge before stopping, his head drooping over the side, over a thousand feet over empty air.  
  
He climbed to his feet and readied Charon's Claw, glaring at Drizzt, who was merely standing straight and staring at him blankly. There was something strange about that stare, as if Drizzt were looking at Entreri but seeing someone else.  
  
He charged Drizzt then, but the drow was ready for him.  
  
The scimitars batted away every attack, every strike, each move bringing the fight closer to the end of the sequence of moves. Entreri jabbed his sword straight out. Icingdeath slammed into it and pinned it to the ground.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt's weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.  
  
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move.*  
  
"What will you do now, killer of young elves? Killer of Ellifain!"  
  
Drizzt stared into the eyes of his father in absolute horror. That wasn't possible! Zaknafein had not known the elf's name, had not lived to see Drizzt slay that same elf girl later in his life! It could not be! Suddenly Drizzt felt the guilt well up in him. He felt the shame of his deeds reflected in the eyes of his father and he could not face that stare.  
  
Cursing, tears forming in his eyes, Drizzt struck, blindly, and with all the strength he could muster. He let go of his sword. Zak overbalanced and fell forward, and Drizzt brought his knee straight up into his face. Zak reversed direction and fell backward to the ground, clutching at his nose.  
  
"It was in defense!" Drizzt shouted at him, his voice cracking.  
  
And he came out of the past, staggering as he rushed back to the mountain top.  
  
He looked down and found Entreri clutching at his nose, laying upon the ground, blood covering his face.  
  
Drizzt also realized that he was unarmed. A rage filled him as he looked upon Entreri and he snatched up his scimitar and charged. Entreri rolled to his feet and charged Drizzt. They came together for a singular moment and lightning blasted through the sky, turning night to day, and thunder rolled, long and loud, as Entreri felt Icingdeath slide easily into his body at the same time that Drizzt felt Charon's Claw pierce his flesh.  
  
Both opponents gasped in pain and hovered on their feet for a long moment, staring at each other, both impaled by the other, both seriously wounded.  
  
Time stopped for one long, horrifyingly long, moment.  
  
Then they slid off of each other's swords and fell beside each other, gasping for breath, clutching at bleeding wounds, swords clattering to the stone.  
  
"Ironic how the tables turn, isn't it?" Entreri rasped.  
  
Drizzt raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question, wincing in pain.  
  
"Once it was I who attacked so rashly, who let his anger be his guide, to want revenge, to not know one's place in the world. Now, I see, that has changed. I am the one secure in my place, and you, O Righteous Drow, are lost and confused," said Entreri, voice wavering at several points.  
  
The rage left Drizzt's eyes as he heard Entreri speak. The human was right. The roles had reversed and Drizzt hated himself the more for it. He would never have done that in the past, would never have rushed so stupidly into battle. He smiled slightly as he remembered how he had taught Wulfgar the same lessons he was now repeating. How cruelly ironic fate was.  
  
"Who then is now living the lie, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Entreri sneered, clearly enjoying every second of having the moral advantage over Drizzt, even though it may be the last seconds of his life.  
  
The words were an icy knife in the weary heart of Drizzt Do'Urden.  
  
"So teach then, O Mighty Human," smiled Drizzt. He knew his place, his purpose once again.  
  
Entreri smiled.  
  
"Gladly," he said, and the human, finding some energy reserves, rolled to the right, grasping Charon's Claw eagerly.  
  
The human found himself propelled by an anger that fed his energy, that gave him the last reserves of strength. He was driven to do what he set out to do, defeat the drow. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the burning, sharp pain in his side, ignoring the wet, red blood staining his tunic, ignoring the fact that he was seriously wounded.  
  
Drizzt climbed to his feet wearily, but did not retrieve his scimitar.  
  
Entreri lurched towards Drizzt grimly.  
  
Drizzt Do'Urden lifted not a finger.  
  
In fact, he smiled.  
  
* taken from Salvator's Homeland, pg. 276 


	6. Chapter Six: Sacrifices of a Hero

Chapter Six  
  
Sacrifices of a Hero  
  
How cruel a trickster is Fate. Entreri is right. We have reversed roles. He is on the moral high ground this time, fighting with honor, patience, and moral confidence. He has changed so much. We both have.  
  
Of course, he is not yet completely good. Elements of the old Entreri remain, and likely always will, but he holds his course toward morality. I now hold great hope in him. The cold, soulless heart of Artemis Entreri is not as cold as he thought. It has cracked under the truth and the cracks widen every day, letting in the warmth of companionship and hope to a man who thought himself uncrackable.  
  
I was lost, this I admit. I knew not my purpose in life. After Catti-brie was attacked, I was unsure of everything. I questioned my being, my fiber, my very faith.  
  
"Who then is living the lie," Entreri said. Who indeed. It was I, I know now. I was lying to myself by questioning all I know to be right in the bottom of my heart. By denying those simple truths I became a walking lie and had no place with my friends, or on the surface world.  
  
I helped Entreri see that his life was a lie, and now he has returned the favor. My hope in the eventual victory of good over evil, of light over dark, is restored again.  
  
Good can come from hardship and those thought lost can be returned to us greater than before.  
  
I know my place now, my purpose.  
  
I can say with confidence, that the events of my life are indeed my fault. I say this now without despair or anger or guilt. Ellifain was NOT right. My life is and was NOT a lie. I can see this now. In every situation, when I confronted the Balor Errtu, when I saved the elf child Ellifain, when I fought with Entreri that first time, I made a choice—the right choice I now see. At that point I reacted according to my moral code and fought to defend my companions, fought to defend myself, fought to defend my morality. That is always the right course. If something is right, then that path is the one to be followed, be death waiting at the end. The course of right must be pursued, no matter the cost.  
  
When I looked back upon my life in my despair, I did not look past the bad. Yes, Errtu may have tortured Wulfgar in the Abyss, but he is still with us and has found himself again. Yes Entreri threatened my friends and my own life on many occasions, but he never claimed the life of any of us, and through that conflict, I see that he has learned a measure of my morality, seen the truth of my statements.  
  
Zaknafein may have died, but he died for what he knew was right. Catti-brie fell, but fell out in the wild where she was at peace.  
  
Yes, the drow may have come because of me. Yes, these things may have happened because of what I did in my past. I know this. But the past is the past and cannot be changed. The reason Wulfgar had such problems after his return from the Abyss was because he was constantly dwelling on the past, on the negative.  
  
Zaknafein followed his moral code without compromise, and because of that, he gave his life for mine.  
  
Can I do any less?  
  
Darkness may fall over the earth, over people and countries, yet the dawn will come again as well, and the brighter it will shine if those few who know the truth will shine like stars, like candles in the darkness, spreading it as we may. That is what we are to be, stars. Not the sun itself.  
  
I have found my place and I am content.  
  
--Drizzt Do'Urden  
  
***  
  
At the last second, just as Entreri's blades were about to slice through Drizzt's chest, the drow nimbly ducked aside. He turned and faced Entreri, looking hard at the man.  
  
"Take up your weapon, Drizzt Do'Urden!" growled Entreri, flicking Icingdeath towards Drizzt with the toe of his boot. Drizzt caught the handle, but continued to look hard at Entreri.  
  
"I will not fight you, Entreri."  
  
And Drizzt tossed Icingdeath aside.  
  
***  
  
Pwent punched the orc in the face, the spiky armor covering his fist splattering the orc's face. It staggered backward. Pwent pursued, short legs pumping, and he lowered his head, impaling the squealing orc with the extremely long point on the top, then stood straight, the orc sliding a little further onto the impaling blade. Then Pwent began hopping up and down, forcing, driving the orc farther onto it, the orc now gurgling weakly.  
  
His warriors had pretty much taken care of the orc problem, but several had broken through the ranks of dwarves and were charging up the path towards the top of the mountain in desperation.  
  
"After 'em, boys!" Pwent yelled, charging after them, little legs pumping furiously, propelling the insane dwarf over the ground at an incredible pace.  
  
***  
  
Grignag ran full out, clutching his black orc bow tightly, leading the desperate charge up the path. Those blasted dwarves had come out of the sky, out of nowhere and massacred his men! But Grignag's stupid mind was obsessing about one thing.  
  
He would eliminate that human if it was the last thing he did!  
  
***  
  
Entreri lunged forward, blades arcing down towards the unarmed drow's neck. Drizzt closed his eyes and accepted that which came to him.  
  
Entreri halted his blade at the last second, the edge caressing Drizzt's neck. He stared long at the drow, his face twisted in conflict. He shook his head and stepped back.  
  
"I cannot," he whispered, his voice shaking with anger and pain. "You are unarmed."  
  
"That never stopped you before," commented Drizzt pointedly.  
  
But Entreri was shaking his head again. He dropped the sword to the ground and put his head in his hands.  
  
"How could I?" he whispered. "I will never know who is best...."  
  
"I think you know the answer to that already," Drizzt said quietly. He could feel the healing ruby working already.  
  
Entreri slowly looked up, eyes sad, almost deadlike.  
  
"You," he said. "You are the better."  
  
Drizzt smiled faintly. "No," he said, "Not exactly."  
  
Entreri eyed Drizzt curiously.  
  
"We are equally skilled," explained Drizzt.  
  
"You defeated me inside the tower of Crenshinibon," Entreri pointed out, and there was not a hint of anger or revenge or hate for Drizzt at all in his voice or eyes. Merely...respect, and Entreri realized with surprise, companionship.  
  
"You are only as strong as your morality," replied Drizzt. "We are equally skilled, as I said. I defeated you because you were a minion of evil will no real morality to speak of. I, on the other hand, had a very strong morality. Good is always stronger than evil, Artemis Entreri."  
  
Entreri smiled then.  
  
The orc crested the rise behind them, fumbling with a black bow, nocking a foul arrow. Behind him were the cries of angry dwarves. The orc drew back the bow and took aim.  
  
Entreri's back was to the orc, but Drizzt saw over the human's shoulder and locked onto the scene unfolding behind them.  
  
"Look out!" cried Drizzt as the orc loosed the foul arrow. He stepped forward and shoved Entreri out of the arrow's path. The black foul shaft punched through Drizzt's chest, blasting, tearing through and the tip exploded out of his back.  
  
Drizzt lurched from the impact, eyes wide, stunned. He felt the pain flow from his nerves and he let out a shuddering gasp. He felt suddenly cold.  
  
The orc cursed and fumbled for another arrow. It snatched one from its quiver and prepared to nock it as well. The tip of a metal spike exploded through its chest.  
  
***  
  
Pwent lifted the orc, impaled on his helmet spike, off of the ground and tossed it over the side of the mountain.  
  
"Yah!" the dwarf cried, shaking a fist in triumph as he watched the orc tumble out of sight.  
  
Then he turned and his eyes fell upon Drizzt.  
  
***  
  
Drizzt staggered backward a step. He was at the edge of the cliff. A several thousand foot drop was below him. Entreri simply stood and stared, too dumbfounded to move.  
  
"Come," whispered the voice of his father faintly from far away. "Come home..."  
  
"I..." started Drizzt, and he tipped backward over the cliff and vanished from sight.  
  
***  
  
"No!" Entreri shouted, running to the edge of the mountain and peering down. Drizzt had already fallen out of sight.  
  
The drow had saved his life, Entreri slowly realized. His final act was to save his long-time enemy. Entreri was stunned.  
  
Pwent slowly came up beside the human, also staring down at the sheer drop in something bordering on horror and sorrow.  
  
The only sound was that of the rain pattering on the stone of the mountain.  
  
***  
  
Catti-brie felt the tears come again.  
  
She stood on Bruenor's Climb watching the sun gently set in the west. It was now a week since Drizzt's death and her wounds were healing quickly—at least the physical ones. She was sure her heart would never mend. They were all in shock. They never thought that Drizzt would be taken from them this way—she never thought that he would depart.  
  
They had never found his body.  
  
Just thinking about him, seeing his smiling face in her mind, broke her heart again. She sank to her knees as a sob wracked her body. Then another and another. She buried her face in her hands and gasped in air as the hot tears came.  
  
Her heart knew nothing but pain. It was like a dead weight tied to her, an empty ache that actually hurt deep inside her chest. Her mind was a blur of memories and remembrances.  
  
"Why..." she whispered. "Why'd ye have to leave me....?"  
  
The unconscious sobs came again to her and shook her again and again. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the hot tears flow down her cheeks. She raised her head and let out a heartrending cry of anguish as she lowered her hands, shaking with emotion and curled them into fists.  
  
She cried her heart to the setting sun, she wept her sorrows to the sky, she screamed her rage to the unhearing stars.  
  
After some time, she calmed, breathing deep, shaking breaths and sat, her feet dangling from the edge of Bruenor's Climb. At first, glancing down, she thought she was tempted to jump, to fall to her doom, but there was something holding her back.  
  
Then, slowly, as the words came to her, she opened her mouth and began to softly sing a lament.  
  
"Softly a voice calls to me,  
  
A pull from far off,  
  
Perhaps past the distant sea,  
  
The distant cry aloft.  
  
-  
  
It breaks my empty heart,  
  
My soul shall never mend,  
  
The pain comes to part,  
  
The sorrow to rend.  
  
-  
  
Those eyes,  
  
Noble and true,  
  
They come to me,  
  
That ranger I once knew.  
  
-  
  
That ebony face,  
  
And beautiful grin,  
  
Raised by a dark race,  
  
His spirit they could not break.  
  
-  
  
You have passed like an echo on the water,  
  
Like a whisper in the meadows,  
  
You have fallen at last,  
  
And left me here behind.  
  
-  
  
You have passed where I cannot follow,  
  
You have gone where I cannot see,  
  
Now nothing more than shadow and memory,  
  
Nothing but a fading scent upon the winds.  
  
-  
  
Lost is my love,  
  
Vanished is he who has my heart,  
  
As incorporeal as the mists of time,  
  
As a shadow in the night.  
  
-  
  
Once my heart was warm,  
  
Once was I content,  
  
Once I knew certainty,  
  
Once, I loved a noble Drow."  
  
She cried herself to sleep.  
  
Gently, the sun set, the light fading. Soon the stars came, twinkling into the night..... 


	7. Chapter Seven: Epilogue

Epilogue  
  
Resolution  
  
I know my place now. It is the least likely place I would have expected. My purpose in life. It is strange, my whole past. I know not why I lived as I did, to me looking back now, it seemed unfathomable entirely.  
  
I am happy now. My life has meaning, something which it lacked before.  
  
I spend most of my time in Icewind Dale now, wandering the roads and keeping them clear of bandits and monsters, much like my equal, Drizzt Do'Urden, once did. Perhaps one day I shall return to Calimport, but now that is not my purpose nor intention.  
  
I don't know if I will ever be accepted here. I don't know if I will ever forgive myself for not assisting the greatest fighter to ever have breathed in his darkest hour, for watching as he plunged over the edge of the mountain. Will his friends? I doubt that I will ever become fully forgiven by them for practically taking their closest friend and companion, and in the case of the fully recovered Catti-Brie, lover, from them. I don't know that I need to be.  
  
All I know is that I will continue what Drizzt started, fighting for what I know to be right.  
  
Already the tale of Drizzt Do'Urden has spread far beyond Luskan, or even Calimport and Neverwinter Forest. Most in the Realms have heard of his name by now, thanks to me and several contacts aquired in my previous life.  
  
I will have the name Drizzt Do'Urden spoke with reverence throughout Faerun. I will have his tale told by father to children throughout the generations.  
  
I will have him remembered as he was, not as an evil drow, for he surely was not that, but as the greatest warrior in the Realms, the kind being, the philosopher, the lover.  
  
And possibly even, in his final hours of life, my friend.  
  
--Artemis Entreri  
  
***  
  
The wind howled, cold and stinging amid the empty, barren mountain caps thousands of feet above sea level.  
  
A great, powerful fist snatched a good handhold on the lip of an enclave close to the peak, and the barbarian warrior hoisted himself up to a safe perch, crouched in a defensive stance, wary eyes flitting about, surveying the top of the snow-covered peak that marked the highest point of the Spine of the World mountain range.  
  
His was a magnificent body, corded muscles rippling across his taut and ready form, blood and adrenanline flowing powerfully though his veins.  
  
Quickly, so quickly that it seemed the weapon simply appeared in his meaty fists, a great, crafted braodsword was suddenly at the ready. There was an undeniable grace about the barbarian, about his movements; all purposed, all holding a smooth, masculine feline strength as he waited for signs of foes.  
  
The enclove was, as the sun was hovered high in the north-west at the barbarian's back, not shadowed at all and was also empty—aside the moans of the wind.  
  
The barbarian Raregar, Champion of the Tribe of the Wolf stared around him. No, he corrected himself as he moved closer. The enclave was not empty. There was a body.  
  
It lay crumpled and battered against the wall of the cliff. Raregar peered upward critically. It had to be a five-hundred foot drop from the top of mountain.  
  
He silently prodded the body, testing to see if it was alive. It did not move.  
  
Cautiously, Raregar rolled it over, and looked upon the face of Drizzt Do'Urden. He knew that face, had seen it before, when he was but a child. An arrow protruded from his chest.  
  
Raregar thought he should feel sad, but then he had not known the drow warrior. He did know, however, that the late drow's companions would wish to have the body, for burial.  
  
He gathered up the broken body and began the slow trek back down the mountain.  
  
It was the least he could do.  
  
***  
  
Far off, in his campaign tent, the general paced.  
  
Moving from the tent, the General paused outside the flap and regarded the force stretching out across the plains, a moving sea of black against the green of the hills.  
  
The General smiled. To the General's mind, it was a sea of dark beauty.  
  
It was nearly time. Nearly time to begin the war.  
  
***  
  
Somewhere amid the Spine of the World, an entity came awake, awoken for the first time since the dawning of the world. It was eager to start again. The Jewel of Shancar came awake.  
  
It was the start of the war.  
  
The War of Shancar.  
  
THE END  
  
The Companions of the Hall will return...as soon as the story is written. 


End file.
